MsBizWiz – Jean Chow | Business & Career Coach

Three Tips for Cross-cultural Networking

Featured January 2024 University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies CuriosityU Blog: https://learn.utoronto.ca/curiousu-blog/career/three-tips-cross-cultural-networking

“Don’t think you’re the smartest person in the room. Listen more. Have a beginner’s mindset.” – Jean Chow, SCS instructor

The Platinum Rule vs The Golden Rule

Most people know The Golden Rule – Treat others how you want to be treated. Yet it’s not always the best way to approach people. You only know how you want to be treated, your background, your cultural upbringing, your standards.

The Platinum Rule is an important shift in perspective which challenges you to treat others how they want to be treated.

So how do we know how they want to be treated? Applying the Platinum Rule involves understanding and respecting the unique preferences of individuals in various contexts, (including cultural context), developing meaningful relationships, and offering helpful collaboration.

Humility helps.

Don’t think you’re the smartest person in the room. Listen more. Have a beginner’s mindset. In Japanese, the word “shoshin” means “beginner’s mind.” You may find it refreshing and freeing when you learn to let go of your preconceptions and have an attitude of openness when learning

Be culturally curious and sensitive.

Do you work on a multicultural team and/or work for a multinational company? Often, the answer is “Yes!” Look around. In our professional and personal lives, we may all speak the same language but this doesn’t necessarily translate into engagement and collaboration. Communication is not so straight forward. English is widely spoken in the following countries: Canada, U.S., U.K., Ghana, and Australia, and our cultures are different.

As an emerging or an established leader, learn more about your own communication style and discover how it can be further developed to facilitate successful professional networking and meaningful relationships. Through a range of highly interactive activities, SCS 4100 is designed to help you level up your relationship building and intercultural competency.

#crossculturalcommunications #interculturalcompetency #interculturalcommunications #internationalbusiness #multinationalteams

Super connector and SCS instructor Jean Chow is currently focused on her successful professional coaching practice, aptly known on social media as @MsBizWiz, she also hosts the “Dream Network”, a highly diverse, international professional networking organization, which she founded in 2018. Jean knows instinctively what could be and is excited by the prospect of connecting people, ideas, and projects to get things done or to create something bigger and better. No longer active on the squash court (now Pickleball!), she is delighted her squash network continues to thrive and help others. Jean enjoys spending time as a volunteer mentor helping youth recognize and realize their potential and is writing a field guide about her intelligent approach to successful networking.

Networking Knows No Boundaries in Business and Science

Celebrating Women in Business and in Science

Last week I attended two back to back in-person events – University of Toronto – Rotman School of Management and WSTEM TO ‼️

Dean Susan Christoffersen hosted hashtag#InsidetheCSuite hashtag#ceos Heather Chalmers GE and Penny Wise 3M who shared stories on their successful career paths, and thoughts on hashtag#innovation, informative and inspirational. Thank you!

WSTEM TO event was a celebration of their hashtag#mentorship program and partners Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO) FLOW Coaching Institute . Each group of hashtag#mentors and hashtag#mentees , proudly presenting at the podium,
Guest speaker Jackie Rafter, MBA CEO Higher Landing shared her successful career path, offering hashtag#motivation and hashtag#inspiration .

Many thanks Daphna Mokady Anna Khimchenko and Sowmya Shivanna for your kind invitation. Extraordinary progress from inception to celebration ???

hashtag#daretoshare one event hashtag#science and hashtag#business ? ? hashtag#cometogether
hashtag#communitybuilding

hashtag#csuiteleaders
hashtag#allyship hashtag#mentorship hashtag#leadership
hashtag#womeninbusiness
hashtag#womeninstem Activate to view larger image,

About Last Night …

Welcome back event — Welcome Back Event for Students and Faculty – Sep 6, 2022

About Last Night …

I’m from the dark ages so forgive me. What I’m about to share is not new but worth repeating. Nothing beats meeting someone for the first time, face to face, shoulder to shoulder, live and in person … especially when that “someone” are our students and faculty. Special thanks to @TRP Student Social Committee who hosted last night’s “Welcome” event.

In this 2013 Harvard Business Review article, “Connect, then Lead” Amy J. C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, John Neffinger, their research shows unless you show warmth, you won’t be able to make connection no matter how competent you are, and therefore, as a leader, no one will follow you.

I don’t know about you but I still haven’t found the magic keys on my laptop that I can tap out and spell and hit send to transmit “warmth” across the tiles filled with faces to make a true connection with my audience. But we do our best and show up … with our cameras on, hopefully.

Way back when, I remember a world (dark ages) with no cameras, just us. A smile, a handshake, a hug, or a fist pump would create and create a spark and make a connection instantly, in real time, #IRL. You know what I mean.

Don’t get me wrong! I swear technology is like romantic relationships. You can’t live with them and you can’t live without them. I am grateful everyday that Mom (age 92), remembers how to activate the video call button on her shiny red iPhone XR. Dad (age 93) would appear with this look of wonder, mesmerized by What’s App.

But savouring and saving the memories from last night, it’s hard to replicate the warmth and magic online but as educators, we try our best to connect, engage, and if we’re lucky, captivate our students virtually in class this new term.

Anne Lamott once wrote in her classic, “Bird by Bird”, “As we live, we begin to discover what helps in life and what hurts.” And every now and again, I wonder whatever happened to the good ol’ days? Trust me, you will wonder one day, too.

For When People Ask

A Poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

What the World Needs now

If there’s anything this pandemic has given us besides uncertainty, it’s the gift of time. How did you spend your time over the past two years?

Was it time well spent? Did you become laser focused on what’s important? You already knew. Did you rise and fall (many times) getting lost in the ebbs and flow of uncertainty? Or did you reach out and connect with someone to see if they were all right?

What the world needs now and always is connectivity, not the virtual kind but the humankind.

“When we meet face to face, we become human. We lift each other up. We need this.” – Rev. Cecil Williams, Pastor

Virtual Connectivity

Technology can be a beautiful thing. I taught my 91-year-old Mom to video call me on her shiny new red iPhone XR. My 92-year-old Dad wanted to touch my face on the screen. We laugh a lot.

We celebrated one hundred days since the birth of my good friends’ beautiful baby boy and raised a glass of Prosecco in one hand and waved at the faces in the little Zoom tiles.

We celebrated the life of our faraway dear friend in Malaysia last week and recorded a message for her to hear in her final days.

And we, colleagues and students, are about to celebrate two years of online teaching next month! Has it really been two years?

Some may ask, what is there to celebrate? Will Covid continue to lurk in the shadows as we make our way onto flights and visit Level 4 countries? How much risk are we willing to take when we share a coffee with a friend or colleague, hug family, or hold the hand of someone suffering?

Human and Virtual Connectivity

Thirty (!) years ago, I was in the computer lab at University of Calgary, updating my resume. I had just returned from a three-year posting in Sulawesi with the University of Guelph and Global Affairs. A young man peered at my monitor and asked, “Do you speak Bahasa Indonesia?” And I answered “Bisa! (Yes, I can!)

That was the beginning of our long-term friendship. His Mom cooked me Indonesian food and he now is in San Francisco. We stay connected with visits and chats and have lively discussions about life in the time of COVID.

Recently he shared with me Conor Neill’s Sep 2020 video on two ways of approaching life, “Freedom from or Freedom to” and also on “making a choice or decision”. Professor Neill, who teaches leadership at the global IESE Business School in Barcelona, has explained with great clarity about the distinction in both. Tune in as he asks:

Do you want to live your life merely to survive and removing pain or live your life making choices with confidence?
Do you want to choose and take full responsibility and commit to making your decisions work or do you want to continually validate and justify the decisions you’ve made and say it wasn’t the core of me that has failed?

I believe wholeheartedly in “freedom to …” and choosing confidently, all in, 100%. Go celebrate! Go for coffee, maybe with someone new! Go hug and smile! Hold both hands, touch a heart, connect a soul.

Now you choose.

I am a high energy Instructor teaching soft skills at post secondary institutions in Toronto, Canada to anyone who is curious about connectivity and networking. My next webinar series starts March 12th https://learn.utoronto.ca/programs-courses/courses/3587-fearless-networking-connecting-creatively-confidently

Lifelong Learning is for Life!

I don’t know about you but my parents taught me anything worth having requires hard work.

Hard work may mean a lot of hours which doesn’t fit neatly into this world of fast > faster > fastest.

With no formal #marketing background and the infinite support and encouragement from all my instructors, friends, family, and colleagues University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, I owe a huge debt of #gratitude. It’s no small feat to earn this certificate over four years.

Squinting at tiny source code through my reading glasses, scratching my head at search engines and landing pages, sweating at the possibility of simply not “getting it”, these are the benefits of being a lifelong learner.

I also have the privilege of teaching “Fearless Networking: Connecting Creatively and Confidently” at the School of Continuing Studies and with our learners, my learning has compounded like interest earned.

Our School is not only a place where you can build skills and learn more but it’s also a community and network where we help one another and stay connected. Why not join us as a lifelong learner? It’s hard work but it’s definitely worth it!

Dream Network Drop-in Event – Networking through random collisions!

Dream a little? Dream a lot? Dream big!

We love “random collisions” and meeting new people!

**Dream Network Drop-in No. 18 at the Art Gallery of Ontario March 11, 2020**

How It Works

The Dream Network Drop-in is a fun, free, friendly, and no-frills approach to speed-networking once a month. We are a curated audience, i.e. by invite only. It’s easy! If you’d like more information and an invite to our next Dream Network Drop-in No. 33 on Wednesday May 26, 2021 18:00-19:30 EST, please contact Jean Chow at [email protected] . And yes, you can add friends! Just email Jean!

Pre-COVID, we met at the Art Gallery of Toronto or Assembly Chef’s Hall, both located downtown Toronto, usually with 30 – 40 members in attendance.

Given the extraordinary circumstances of COVID-19, our highly diverse Dream Network Drop-ins are now being held virtually on Zoom with 20 to 50 members attending. In 90 minutes, we would go through 4 rounds of introducing new people, 1 on 1, and you would have 10-minutes each round in breakout rooms to get to know one another.

Post COVID, we’ll continue to host both virtual events and in-person events.

How We Started

We started the Dream Network Drop-in as a “social experiment” after I was invited by University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies to design and deliver “Hacking the Networking Code now titled “Fearless Networking: Connecting Creatively and Confidently” on July 8, 2017. At that time, my “secret outcome” was creating a new network for our learners by the end of the workshop. Also after our all-day workshop (yes, I can talk about networking for 7 hours!), I saw the need for a physical (and now virtual) safe space for our lifelong learners to practice their newly-minted networking skills.

So the Dream Network Drop-in was launched April 28, 2018 as a think tank with six members! Now 450+ member strong, we continue to build and grow our Network organically by inviting young professionals, former students, emerging and recent graduates, early to mid-careerists, mentees, and adult learners from all over the world.

May 2021 NEWS FLASH – Dream Network Drop-in is now a case study in recently published “Organization Theory and Design” Chapter 4 by University of Toronto Rotman Professor Ann Armstrong and her colleague, Richard L. Daft.

Organization Theory and Design Published by CENGAGE

https://www.cengage.ca/c/organization-theory-and-design-44-4th-edition-4e-daft-armstrong/9780176915582/?filterBy=Higher-Education#overview

Be fearless! Put your networking skills to practice at our next Dream Network Drop-in No. 33 on Wednesday May 26, 2021 18:00-19:30 EST .

Contact Jean Chow at [email protected] .

“It’s not what you know. It’s not who you know. It’s who you can help!”

Dream Network Drop-in No.31, March 25, 2021

Be a Difference Maker? Be an Awesome Mentor!

Introducing our honour roll of “Distinguished Dozen” at our Ryerson Chang School’s inaugural “Mentoring Makes a Difference” Event last Thursday, April 22nd from Left to Right above:

@JackNodel @VanessaDuran @LennoxParkins @KamalSoan @DorisDitner @MikeFedryk @AidenYosefi @JoseGarcia @AlbertChow @RosemaryDietrich @MahdiZageneh @LarissaCarvalho

After pre-matching our “Distinguished Dozen” with our newcomer professionals from two #bridgingpprograms, the speed-mentoring evening zoomed by in four 15-minute rapid rounds of one-on-one conversations.

And a little like love, chemistry plays a big role in matching mentors and mentees together. In my experience in designing professional mentorship programs, I agree with the school of thought that mentoring “magic” doesn’t necessarily come from matching individuals from the same industry and occupation. What’s important is recruiting mentors who are leaders with solid experience in developing people and mentees who are coachable.

What makes a great mentor? To be a difference maker, you set an intention, have shared values, and communicate clearly and effectively with empathy. You #aspiretoinspire

Our “Distinguished Dozen” are solid with a total of 300+ years of experience! As founders and leaders, their experience spans staffing solutions and executive recruitment, law, coaching, international business development, private real estate development, professional services contracting, innovation consulting in sustainability. While some hold multiple professional designations and degrees – PMP, CPA, FCPA, MSc, PEng, MBA, BA, PhD, others graduated from the School of Life. Our mentors also work in multiple industries: renewable energy, oil and gas, banking, insurance, government, retail, and property management, education, Fintech, construction, engineering, and utilities to name a few.

To be a mentee, you are coachable, having humility, respect, and curiosity, asking good questions.

Our mentees are students and alumni from our two bridging programs: “Middle Level Managers with Technical Background” and the “Green Economy” at Ryerson Chang School. From Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, and Turkey, our mentees have also worked in the Middle East, Moldova, Nigeria, Uganda, and the United States.

We are infinitely grateful to our Mentors for their generous time, support, and wisdom and to our Mentees and their willingness to meet new people. Thank you to all who attended and participated. As the award-wining American author and 2017 Man Book Prize winner, George Saunders, wrote “Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness” (2014), here is my parting thought: Congratulations, you all made a difference – an indelible difference!

Speak Up – Hack # 3 Networking with Very Important People

Who are these VIPS, Very Important People? Where are they? And why do you want to connect with them? Are you looking for a job or maybe your DREAM JOB? From their perspective, they want to know who you are and most importantly, why should they give you their time. How do you speak up?

Speak to Me – With Your Resume

If you are looking for your DREAM JOB, consider the help of a top professional recruiter. Mike Fedryk, my good squash friend and President of Flex-Solutions, a Toronto recruitment firm focusing on people and technology, is a regular and very popular guest speaker for our students. Not only does he share a unique perspective, he also is very generous in providing invaluable job search and interview tips and tricks

Mike: “You need to tell me who you are and what you are looking for in the opening third portion of the first page of your resume for me to continue reading the rest of your resume.”

Speak to Me – With Your LinkedIn Profile

If you are looking for your Dream Job, consider connecting with employees who already work for your “Dream Employer” on LinkedIn. How do you connect with a stranger? Try reverse engineering and start with a search with your Alumni. Find a first or second connection who works with your Dream Employer. Add a concise, clear, and compelling note. Invite them to link in you’re not already connected and always add a note. Nick Boyd, Senior Marketing Coordinator at KPMG, and also one of our guest speakers created the following simple self-intro template:

Speak to Me – On Our Website

If you are looking for your Dream Job, consider offering your skills as a volunteer to help the charity your Dream Employer supports. You can usually find out on their website. Connect with the person who is on your Dream Employer’s team and who leads the foundation or projects associated with their charity of choice. Tell them who you are, what you are looking for, and how you can help with their charity. Be authentic and relevant. Can you help them build, market, plan, lead an initiative? Stand out. Meet their Board of Directors of both the charity and your Dream Employer.

Speak to Me – On My Channel

When you initiate any form of communication, did you know it’s your responsibility to ensure your listener understands fully what you are saying? To have a meaningful connection, you have to find the right channel and the right frequency so both of you can tune in. How? By simply asking the other person which channel is best and most convenient for them – email, text, phone, video conference, and when.

If they are in senior executive roles, thought leaders, or entrepreneurs, find out where they are active for e.g. LinkedIn articles and posts, their company blog, notable industry platforms where they’ve been invited as a guest author, keynote speaker, or guest panelist whether they are at a conference or an industry event or quoted in a publication. You can also comment or ask a good question during a virtual event in the chat.

And if the person happens to be your Dad who hates wearing his hearing aids indoors, you not only have to find the right channel but also the right frequency in order for him to not only understand you but also hear you! What do you do when he already has his menu of monologues prepared in advance … and he won’t let you get a word in over the phone?

We rarely jump on a video call because they don’t have internet so it’s only when my siblings are visiting them. Last night instead of yelling louder, I decided to try another channel – analog. I grabbed my Sharpie and post-it notes and created flashcards, holding them up in front of the camera for Dad to read. He was very amused and didn’t miss a beat. Finding the right channel made a world of difference for us both.

In our highly interactive networking workshops and courses offered both live online and in-person, “Speak Up” is Hack #3 of the “Five Hacks for Fearless Networking”. We focus on the importance of small talk, building rapport, and asking good questions using improv in individual, pair, and group activities.

So whether you are an aspiring networker or a seasoned connector, you will discover new and strategic ways to network in “Fearless Networking” at University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies. Reserve your spot starting at 10:00AM EST March 13th for three consecutive Saturday morning 90-minute live webinar sessions. AND you’ll get to put your new networking skill into practice at the invite-only monthly “Dream Network Drop-in” on Thursday March 25th at 18:00 EST. Find out more and register now to connect creatively and confidently. Or speak to me at [email protected] .

Jean is a part-time Sessional Lecturer and Instructor. She teaches online and off-line courses in networking, advanced career management, and leadership at University of Toronto, Ryerson University, and Seneca College. She also leads networking workshops for corporate clients and not-for-profits. As a business-career coach, Jean works closely with recent graduates, career-changers, and entrepreneurs and helps them realize and recognize their potential.

When Akram Met Sally … How Networking Works

Remember the classic restaurant scene in “When Harry met Sally”? In the film, after five years, fate reunites Harry and Sally, two former college students, and the story of their relationship unfolds as best friends and … well, you must watch the film.

Fate also introduced Akram and Sally, also two former university students. Akram recently welcomed new graduate students at University of Toronto School of Graduate Studeis when afterwards Sally walked up to him and introduced herself.

Sally was describing her new mater’s program in Translational ResearchProgram at the Faculty of Medicine and she mentioned she was taking my module “Hacking the Networking Code) when Akram suddenly exclaimed, “Jean Chow? No way. She’s my very first mentor when I first arrived in Canada.”

Akram was one of our mentees in my professional mentorship program at a not-for-profit in Mississauga. Recently arrived in Toronto from Cairo, he eagerly soaked up everyhting there was to know about building a successful life, not only in Canada but also anywhere in the world. He stood out because the meaning of “Anything is possible.”. That was six years ago.

Both Sally and Akram have made me proud. Akram’s career path has been stellar and still going strong. Sally’s networking ability is off the charts and also gaining momentum. Thank you both for allowing me to share this story and special thanks to Sally for bringing Akram and I back together again.

Learn how to spot opportunities and learn to love networking us @UofT SCS “Fearless Networking: Connecting Creatively & Confidently”.

Our next series of three Saturday morning live webinars and a special invitation to our Dream Network Drop-in (safe space to practice networking) starts February 13, 2021.