insight for achievement
This is a great article publishing in Harvard Business Review summarising the findings of a study which aimed to identify the code for women’s leadership success. A central theme is that females need to be resilient whilst taking risks. Resilience is a skill that can be developed. Organisations and individuals must continuously monitor their resilience levels, taking early action to address any areas where it becomes compromised. AURA is a new tool developed by Austen Advisory to do just this. … Read More»
Behavioural economics is a relatively new field that combines insights from psychology, judgment, and decision making, and economics to generate a more accurate understanding of human behaviour. Richard Thaler, the ‘father’ of this discipline suggests that there are many opportunities to “nudge” people’s behaviour by making subtle changes to the context in which they make decisions.… Read More»
Carrie Lam, kicking off the conference
It is fantastic to see a rising importance being placed on mental health issues in Hong Kong, reflected by the Hong Kong Mental Health Conference held over the weekend. The 3 day event was centred around the theme and prime mission of overcoming the stigma of mental health, this proposed as being a more complex and difficult problem to tackle than mental illness itself. What I liked was that the conference was not purely academic and based around clinical research but incorporated speakers and practical sessions from a range of disciplines. This enabled an evaluation of the mental health issue from the perspective of the workplace, education, healthcare and policy perspectives.… Read More»
I attended a fascinating talk on ‘Chronic stress and the brain ‘by Dr. Mithu Storoni, a prominent neuroscientist and researcher from London. She shared the latest research insights into the effects of stress on the brain, citing breakthrough scientific studies which help to explain mental, emotional, physical and behavioural changes experienced when under long periods of stress. There was a Q&A session enabling two-way discussion around some relevant and front of mind issues.
Great article about the importance of understanding how pressure is affecting you – highlights the importance for constantly monitoring your emotional, physical and mental wellbeing to prevent burnout. The early signs of burnout often get overlooked. Employees and businesses need to recognise and unearth areas of undue stress. Austen Advisory is a launching a new tool called AURA which can help do just this.
I was fortunate to attend a thought provoking seminar by Professor Ed Freeman, a Business Ethics professor from Darden business school in the USA. He shared the concept of ‘responsible capitalism’ as the new narrative for how business should be done in the 21st century.
I was honoured to work with KELY Support Group over the past several months in Hong Kong. This was a small, yet rewarding way of ‘giving back’ to the society that I have lived in for the past 6 years.
KELY is a non-government funded organisation which provides support to Hong Kong’s youth. They offer various programmes aiming to equip them with key life skills and resilience as they face various challenges growing up in Hong Kong. One such programme is a work placement programme targeting Ethnic Minority youth. Many of these individuals face inequalities and barriers which make it difficult for them to gain employment and build a successful career. Many of them believe this is out of their reach.
I have stopped counting the number of times I have heard my clients complaining about the lack of ‘out of the box thinking’ from their teams or work colleagues. Managers ask me ‘why won’t my colleagues express their ideas or speak up when they can see something is not working?’ Have coached many managers and individuals in Asia, the crux of this seems to be tied to a combination of a lack of confidence in expressing and articulating ideas or concepts along with an ingrained habit of executing based on learning by rote.
Clearly there is no silver bullet to address this issue.… Read More»
So many organisations strive for highly engaged teams and invest massive amounts of money and time in measuring and managing it. However, it is common to find teams with excellent engagement scores yet major performance issues. This goes against the core premise that engagement surveys are built upon. So why do we see this happening?… Read More»
I felt honoured to be a presenter and facilitator at The Women’s Foundation’s first ever alumni reunion.
The session was attended by over 100 of Hong Kong’s smartest and most influential women and focused around the topic career transitions and transformations. Our session was called ‘The Future of Work – taking control of your career’.