Women Breaking Through Leadership Book Launch

Photos and Video

The book launch was held at Metrobooks bookstore, Elements Mall, 1 Austin Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 8 March 2012

Video

Available in all Hong Kong bookstores.

To place a bulk order, please send an email to Ms. Jamay Kwan at:  jamay.kwan [at] restlesstravellerspublishing.com 

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Women and leadership – the lack of women at the top, and what to do about it – is one of the hottest, most discussed topics of the year, both in Asia and internationally.  In Hong Kong particularly, the SCMP (16 December 2010) revealed that while women make up over half of the labor force, 90% of board seats are filled by men.

For several reasons, some cultural and some practical (women are still – and will likely continue to be – the primary caretakers of children and family) when women do rise to leadership positions, it is often because they find a fertile ground and an innovative corporate environment that promotes a culture of diversity.

So what are the key decisions and support systems in a company that contribute to women’s leadership? Women Breaking Through Leadership tells stories of remarkable women in leadership positions in the South East Asia region and their views on which are the best personal (what should women be doing?) and corporate (what should companies be doing?) practices that promote women’s leadership.

In this groundbreaking work the authors explore the lives and thoughts of remarkable women in leadership positions in South East Asia. What actions have enabled them to reach top leadership positions? What kind of infrastructure and support systems in organizations contribute to women’s leadership?

Along the way, the authors offer a new theory: women who have threaded the path of leadership have found ways to successfully integrate all aspects of their lives. So the issue isn’t so much whether women can have it all, but rather how to integrate it all – and each woman succeeds at it in her own individual way. Some do it by aptly surrounding themselves with supportive environments that can help them through the first years of childrearing, others by boldly seeking opportunities and demanding promotions without undermining their femininity.

Be inspired by the stories of these great women who don’t separate life from work in a surgical manner. As a result, they are all passionate for what they do, which in turn gives them the power to influence the outside world, make an impact and leave an indelible mark.

Interviewees

Anson Chan (former Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration)

Junko Nakagawa (CFO at Nomura and rated one of the 10 most influential women in Asia)

Christine Loh (Former Legislator and founder of think thank Civic Exchange)

Teresa Ko (Chairman at Freshfields greater China)

Connie Carnabuci (Partner at Freshfields)

Marie-Amelie Hoffmann (GM of LVMH Watch and Jewelry)

Deborah Kan (Journalist)

Rainbow Pan (CEO of ipac)

Catherine Bradley (Head of Equity Linked Solutions Group, Credit Suisse)

Angelina Kwan, (Managing Director at Reorient Group)

Yana Peel (leading arts philanthropist)

Rachel Huf (Managing Director, Head of Legal at Barclays Capital)

You may contact Stefania Lucchetti at stefania.lucchetti[@]hwbhk.com

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Now that communications technology allows you to work everywhere and anywhere, and therefore self-drive, responsibility and ownership of your work is also a given, what will truly differentiate you from others who are just as committed as you?

The skill, or dare I say the art,  that will make you outshine others, is the ability to deal with people, the willingness to listen, communicate and form meaningful connections beyond the constant online/email chatter.  This is your only killer app, which will give you power to influence and be remembered, making a lasting dent in other people’s lives.

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No matter how solid and consistent you think you may be, you may have different conflicting parts, which embody different values, are ruled by different interests, and have different intentions: they conflict.

If you get mixed messages from your thoughts and emotions in a particular situation, this may confuse you and make you uneasy. You might feel like running away from that situation. However, this happens really often as each one of us is a blend of multiple personality traits often living an uneasy alliance under the same skin, often conflicting.

At times, when making decisions, some parts of you may be out of synch, much like an instrument out of tune in an orchestra or a splash of color that doesn’t fit.

A key trait of true leaders is the ability to reconcile and creatively manage these different parts of themselves so that they can make powerful decisions and focus their attention even when there are conflicting emotions and thoughts at stake.

And this will inevitably happen. The bigger the stakes at play, and the larger the outcome, the more parts of yourself will be drawn into the decision-making process – and therefore the greater the possibility of internal conflict.

So how do you learn to embrace ambiguity, paradox and uncertainty, both in your environment and in your internal thoughts and feelings so that you don’t run away from situations that make you uneasy, but you stay and make conscious, powerful decisions and then take focused action?

By knowing yourself and constantly refining your self awareness and awareness of others.

So what is the secret for making your ideas into reality?

Think back to your high school chemistry classes. Do you remember the process of condensation and the states of matter? How matter varies in state from gas to liquid and to solid?

States of matter change as energy and motion of particles change. When energy decreases, an attraction among particles develops, and matter condenses from gas, to liquid, into solid.

Take water for example. At low temperatures, we find it as ice. As the temperature increases, the crystal melts into water and molecules can run around. As the temperature continues to increase, water boils and becomes a gas. The particles are free to go where they will: freedom! But also chaos!

The process of turning an idea into reality is similar to the conversion process of matter from gas into liquid and then into solid.

Weird metaphor you think? Read on and you’ll be persuaded.

Take a look at the characteristics of the three stages of matter. We have:

Gas: which is high energy, fast moving, maximum chaos, uncontainable;

Liquid: which is medium energy, flexible, containable; and

Solid: which is low energy, rigid, mostly fixed in form.

Now, the process of turning an idea into reality requires three steps:

1.       First step: generating the idea

2.       Second step: conceptualizing the idea into thought

3.       Third step: materializing

that idea in the physical plane.

How is this similar to the process of condensation?

1.       First step: idea generation.
An idea is like matter at the gaseous phase.  It is fast moving, immediate, abstract and uncontainable.

2.       Second step: conceptualizing the idea into thought.  Thought is like matter at the liquid state. It is touchable, contained, flexible and fluid.

3.       Third step: materializing that idea in the physical plane.  The materialization of an idea – then thought – into the physical plane is like bringing matter to the solid state. It is rigid and it has structure and form.

How is this metaphor going to help you?

Bringing an idea down to thought and then to reality requires the mind to work at very different energy, or frequency levels.  This means that you cannot approach the idea generation phase in the same state of mind and by applying the same techniques and skills you use for the materialization phase because you are dealing with a completely different “state” of your idea.

Imagine your ideas in their generation phase as matter at the gaseous state.   They move at a very high frequency level and they are tough to catch.  The most difficult thing to do at this stage is to “catch” those ideas, thereby becoming fully aware of them.

Ideas then need to be condensed into a lower frequency level, the liquid state – or thought.  At this stage, ideas need to be conceptualized.  This is when you need to record the ideas and transform them into comprehensible thoughts.

Finally, ideas need to be further condensed into matter, compressing them down to a lower energetic level, where they become fixed, containable, and have a form.

The chemical process of transforming your ideas into reality therefore requires you to shift
between very different levels! Trying to produce the creative idea in the same mode as it was formed is the near fatal mistake that most people make when going from idea generation to execution.

Buy Ideas in Reality – Making Your Ideas Happen on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
(c) Stefania Lucchetti 2011. All rights reserved. Please contact us via the contact form on this website for permission to republish. Links allowed as long as proper authorship attribution is ensured.

In the past weeks, Ideas in Reality was featured in Cosmopolitan, South China Morning Post, and MingPao Weekly　

The truth is that society is keen on maintaining the status quo and this will reflect in your behaviour.  This means that unless your environment is fully supportive of creativity (and some environments thankfully are!) you will need much more drive, much more determination and much more self leadership to implement a new idea rather than to keep working on proven methods.

Buy Ideas in Reality – Making Your Ideas Happen on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

(c) Stefania Lucchetti 2011. All rights reserved. Please contact us via the contact form on this website for permission to republish. Links allowed as long as proper authorship attribution is ensured.

We are not born with fixed intelligence levels. In a statistical review of more than 200 studies of IQ published in the journal Nature, Bernard Devlin concluded that genes account for no more than 48% of IQ.  The rest is a function of environment and education.

Another myth is that each one of us possesses only, or primarily one type of intelligence. In fact, the human brain is like a multidimensional instrument that can play an infinite number of musical pieces, sometimes one at the time and sometimes simultaneously.

In Frames of Mind, The Theory of Multiple Intelligences Howard Garner categorized intelligence into seven different types:

1. logical mathematical
2. verbal-linguistic
3. spatial- mechanical
4. musical
5. bodily- kinaesthetic
6. interpersonal – social
7. intrapersonal  (self knowledge)

Each of these aspects of intelligence can be developed throughout life so that it becomes as strong as the others. Everyone can develop and use all these forms of intelligence, although different situations will require the use of one aspect more than another.

With the new knowledge about the human brain now available, it should be widely accepted that anyone can both generate ideas and make them happen. Doing so, however, requires using a method and you are the only one who can make the decision to learn and master this method.

Buy Ideas in Reality – Making Your Ideas Happen on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

(c) Stefania Lucchetti 2011. All rights reserved. Please contact us via the contact form on this website for permission to republish. Links allowed as long as proper authorship attribution is ensured.

You may be naturally creative or you may have developed your creativity through lateral thinking exercises, study, brainstorming sessions and creativity coaching. Creativity expresses itself in many different ways: in the production of works of art, writing, in the generation of business ideas or ideas that solve professional or personal issues, major or small, and generally make your life easier and more enjoyable.

Often, however, you may find that the process of transforming an idea into reality eludes you and you are left off wondering whether this is due to a lack of execution skills. Given that most people are good at execution in their jobs, you may think that if you are not implementing new ideas it is because you are not creative, or not creative enough to produce ideas that are worth executing. This is, more often than not, just an excuse we tell ourselves to avoid really understanding the process of generating ideas and putting them to practice.

A creative journey often begins with a spark in your mind. Then the challenge is to make it happen, to transform it into reality, to mould it into something alive and “touchable” or “usable” in the outside world.

The process of turning that idea into reality is completely different and requires the mind to work at a very different level.  Yes, it is really difficult for a creative mind to accept that an inspiring, creative sprout then needs to be developed much like the completion of an administrative task! But that is the reality. Making ideas happen requires a completely different mode and mindset than that which has generated the idea.  It requires organization and relentless execution.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, if you have an execution oriented, logical mind, you might find it difficult to access your ideas, and may have concluded that you are just not creative. This happens for the same reason: ideas and the execution of ideas require a completely different mindset. The reality is that you certainly have ideas but you let them sit in the back of your mind without acknowledging and doing something with them.

Why does this happen?

The creative world seems to be at odds with the organized world. There is creativity on one side and productivity on the other. Generating ideas is often at odds with their execution. The common misconception is that some people are great at being creative, and some people are great at being organized and productive, but no one can be both.

The capacity to generate ideas and make them happen is a gift that we all have. You are gifted with virtually unlimited potential for learning and creativity. The ability to access this creativity, however, which is at its maximum potential in small children, is often lost as we grow up.

A study carried out on the artistic expression of small children compared to middle school children and published by the journal Studies in Art Education in 1997 by a researcher of Harvard Project Zero has shown how there is a loss of creativity in children as they progress with their schooling, which is only developed again in those adults who choose to pursue an artistic career.

Therefore, if you believe you are not creative, it simply means you have become lazy and forgotten how to tap into your brain’s creative potential.

Buy Ideas in Reality – Making Your Ideas Happen on Amazon or Barnes and Noble

(c) Stefania Lucchetti 2011. All rights reserved. Please contact us via the contact form on this website for permission to republish. Links allowed as long as proper authorship attribution is ensured.

In today’s extremely specialized world, it is very common to categorize people as being either gifted creators or great executors, but rarely both. While it is true that most people have a predominant attitude or preference for either the creative aspect or the execution aspect, there is absolutely no reason that prevents someone from being great at both.

However, becoming skillful at both, in this age of increasing specialization, requires going against popular culture.

Creatively oriented people (whether artists or entrepreneurs), while usually admired in the mature part of their life, often go through very difficult time while growing up. This can be explained by the standardized school system which rarely develops curiosity, delight in exploration and ambiguity and asking questions. The system is based on teaching the student to put everything into structure, logic and well known formats Left brain thinking, that is, analytical – logical thinking, is always preferred.

For this same reason, people who are balanced or already logically oriented, rarely find in school (or work) any incentive to develop the skill of “idea creation”. Even in activities which should fall under the artistic batch, such as playing an instrument, children are taught to follow rules and play the tune, but rarely to improvise.

Fortunately, this means that if you think you are not creative, it maybe that you just have not have had an opportunity to explore this side of yourself.

On the other hand, you may be one of those fortunate people who have a knack for idea generation, but poor follow up skills. How many times have you thought of a really fantastic idea? Maybe it was something that would revolutionize the way your office operates. Or perhaps it was a great product that would appeal to millions of people worldwide. Perhaps, you have been planning to start your own business for a while, or write a book, or simply be able to regularly implement fresh ideas in your life, like learning a new sport, creating a garden or organizing your time in a certain way.

There is a way to be consistently great at both generating and executing ideas! In the next few weeks we will unravel how.

Among the questions that I am asked most frequently are: “How do you do it all? How do you so easily put in place your ideas? How do you get ideas in the first place and actually manage to make them happen?”

In today’s extremely specialized world, it is very common to categorize people as being either gifted creators or great executors, but rarely both. While it is true that most people have a predominant attitude or preference for either the creative aspect or the execution aspect, there is absolutely no reason that prevents someone from being great at both.

However, becoming skillful at both, in this age of increasing specialization, requires going against popular culture.

Creatively oriented people (whether artists or entrepreneurs), while usually admired in the mature part of their life, often go through very difficult time while growing up. This can be explained by the standardized school system which rarely develops curiosity, delight in exploration and ambiguity and asking questions. The system is based on teaching the student to put everything into structure, logic and well known formats Left brain thinking, that is, analytical – logical thinking, is always preferred.

For this same reason, people who are balanced or already logically oriented, rarely find in school (or work) any incentive to develop the skill of “idea creation”. Even in activities which should fall under the artistic batch, such as playing an instrument, children are taught to follow rules and play the tune, but rarely to improvise.

Fortunately, this means that if you think you are not creative, it maybe that you just have not have had an opportunity to explore this side of yourself.

On the other hand, you may be one of those fortunate people who have a knack for idea generation, but poor follow up skills. How many times have you thought of a really fantastic idea? Maybe it was something that would revolutionize the way your office operates. Or perhaps it was a great product that would appeal to millions of people worldwide. Perhaps, you have been planning to start your own business for a while, or write a book, or simply be able to regularly implement fresh ideas in your life, like learning a new sport, creating a garden or organizing your time in a certain way.

There is a way to be consistently great at both generating and executing ideas!  Follow this blog in the next few weeks and discover how.

(c) Stefania Lucchetti 2011. All rights reserved. Please contact us via the contact form on this website for permission to republish. Links allowed as long as proper authorship attribution is ensured.

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