The Promota recognises Justina Mutale as a Diaspora role model of the year 2013

The Promota media recognises Afro-Britons who have made a difference encouraging and inspiring others to be better people in 2013.

Justine Mutale:

Justine Mutalehas been making headway in advocating for women’s, children’s and human rights, Ms Mutale is Honorary Ambassador for Gender Equality and Spokesperson for the International Women’s Think Tank.  She has been featured in various international media as an Afro-Briton making a difference-listing her on the Black Women powerlist. We recognise her and as one of the Diasporas making a difference both in the UK and the world over.

About Ms Justine Mutale: African Woman of the Year | Philanthropist | International Speaker | HIV/AIDS | Human Rights Activist | Global Influencer | Honorary Ambassador for Gender Equality | Spokesperson International Womens Think Tank | Founder at Positive Runway: Global Catwalk to Stop the Spread

Thought of the day: Remember your past successes

When going through the hard knock moments, it is important to remember positive aspects of your life. Consider achievements that you have accomplished in your life. Sometimes when going through a moment of feeling down and out you may forget what you have accomplished in the past.

To regain your confidence, consider things you have done successfully in the past. Instances when you have been commended for good performance or moments when you have felt good about yourself. Consider these achievements as an indication that you can overcome what you are going through.

Personality and Work Performance

Personality is very stable after around eighteen years of age. If you’re a parent, you probably think it’s more like eight! In fact, some personal psychologists are now saying that the child you see at three will be the adult you see at thirty – frighten if you have an unruly three year old! But it’s safe to say once we hit eighteen we are “stuck” with who we are. Can we change our personalities to “fit” certain situations?

Yes, we can but we will always revert back to “home-base.” Let me give you a workplace example.

Suppose we had an accounts clerk whose personality was very accommodating, they lacked high assertiveness and strong resilience. The company they work for has suppliers who were late paying their accounts. The boss gives the administrator a list of these bad debtors and asks her to call all of these people and tell them their supplies have been stopped, effective immediately, unless they settle their account within 24 hours to reinstate delivery.

An analogy for personality is folding your arms. People will always fold them the same way. But if asked to fold them the opposite way, they will find this difficult and uncomfortable – it can be done, but as soon as practical, they will revert to a comfortable fold.

Moving to our second question, is personality genetic or environmentally shaped? In psychology, this is the famous ‘nature/nurture’ debate. A new study completed by a team of psychologists at the University of Edinburgh, lead by New Zealander, Tim Bates found compelling evidence that our personality is equally influenced by our genes and the environment. What the study showed was that identical twins in a family were very similar in personality and in well-being, and by contrast, the fraternal twins were only half as similar. This finding strongly implicates genes as a major driver of personality traits.

So, if you’re a worry wart, you can lay 50 percent of the blame on your mum or dad and probably the other 50 percent on the way they brought you up! As psychologists, we have always known the huge role personality plays in a person’s work performance. As a lay person you can observe this in action every day. Stop right now and think about your problem employees. I bet the issue is attitude, their personality – the “who they are,” not “what they know.” Most managers will always hire on aptitude but fire on attitude. Personality influences attitude and attitude drives behaviour.

The problem with most hiring managers is that they tend to rely on gut or emotional judgement to assess attitude during the job interview. It’s impossible to “read” a person’s personality when we first met them. Yes, as humans we are predisposed to do this – known as the ‘flight or fight’ concept. Sometimes we get it right, many times we get it wrong. It is often dangerous to jump to instant conclusions.

When selecting new employees, it’s important to ascertain if the person has the knowledge, skills and experience to do the job. It is probably more important to understand how that knowledge, skill and experience will be put into practice. What are their personality characteristics and general mental abilities of the candidate and does this “fit” the job? There are many personality and mental ability measures available. It’s vitally important that you choose the right ones for the role and that the instrument is specifically designed for selection. There are many cheap, or free, pop psychology tests available on the internet or sold by people with no psychological background. Using teambuilding tools like Myers Briggs and DISC should never be used for hiring.

These tools cannot be normed against specific populations or jobs, plus they lack reliability. They are great at telling you the ‘make and model of the car’, but poor at telling you the condition of the ‘engine’. Using valid personality and general mental ability assessments, benchmarked to the job, alongside a multi-rated, behavioural interview based on the competencies required for the role and a diligent background check will ensure you get an excellent performing employee about 75 to 80 percent of the time.

These are damn sight better odds than relying on a general meet-and-greet and unstructured interview that is at best a friendly chat. Your odds of a successful hire in the latter case is about 5 to15 percent at best. There is a big difference between whether a person CAN and WILL do the job. Given that the person CAN do the job, measuring their personality will explain how they WILL do the job and this is the key to successful work performance. Rob McKay Director of AssessSystems Aust/NZ Ltd, Leaders in employee assessment for selection and development Promota readers can download a complimentary copy of his eBook, “How To Avoid Putting Square Pegs Into Round Holes” at www.tipsforhiring.com/profiling

I bet this person is going to hate doing this task. It’s not in their nature to be so forthright and aggressive, but they will force themselves to do it – it’s part of their job. However, if they had to do this task day-in and day-out, they would soon lose internal motivation and decide this job is not for them and leave.

Quote of the day: Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1. Warren Buffett

QUOTES OF SUCCESS BY WARREN BUFFETT

1. On Earning: “Never depend on single income. Make investment to create a second source”. That is what my grandmother always telling me because having only single income is not only dangerous but also a slow way of accumulating wealth. As one of the definition on risk – “Risk is having only one single income”. For we do not know what the future holds, if it happens that our source of income is in danger or lost, it would be very hard to find another source.

2. On Spending: “If you buy things you do not need, soon you will have to sell things you need”. Discipline is always the key. Do not buy things you do not need. In riding a plane, what is the difference between the business class and economy class? Do you really have to spend so much for that difference? Do you really have to buy branded clothes just to look good? Are the things you are planning to buy necessary? Again, live simple. It is not bad to buy expensive things as long as it has its use.

3. On Savings: “Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving”. This concerns about how you budget your money. Put your savings first before any expenses. The bad formula: income – expenses = savings The good formula: income – savings = expenses Most people save only after what is left at the end of the month. Savings should be part of your budget, not a left over.

4. On Taking Risk: “Never test the depth of the river with both the feet”. Do not use all of your resources in gambling on a certain investment or else you’ll lose everything. Only a considerable portion of your resources should be put on a gamble. By saying considerable portion, I mean the amount of money you are willing to take the risk of losing.

5. On Investment: “Do not put all eggs in one basket”. Have your portfolio diversified. Putting it in one type of investment is risky.

6. On Expectations: “Honesty is a very expensive gift. Do not expect it from cheap people. Do not expect too much from a simple thing. Make reasonable expectation because sometimes it may frustrate you if the returns are too much low from what you have expected.

Thought of the day: Live an Inspired and Rewarding Life

Positive Thinking

The power of positive thinking is directly connected to the ability to remove, control or eliminate negative thoughts.

Negative thoughts eventually destroy your life.

What are negative thoughts?

Thoughts of doubt, fear, worry, doom and gloom, focusing on what could go wrong is a clear sign of negative thinking.

When your mind is filled with negative thoughts you end up attracting more of what you don't want.

So if you want to create a better life, if you want to enjoy greater success, happiness and enjoy more of the things you want, while getting rid of the negative aspects of your life then you have to eliminate the negative thinking. 

I'm going to give you a simple process, and outline some positive thinking exercises so that you get your mind and subconscious mind focused on being positive which attracts more positive situations. When you do this you may have the power of positive thinking working for you,  so please continue reading and feel free to print this if you like. 

Create positive thinking patterns, by working with positive thinking exercises so that you attract more of what you want and so that your subconscious mind brings you the people, situations and circumstances to help you succeed.

You see your thoughts have a direct impact on your life.

Thoughts that you think regularly end up creating beliefs... you begin to believe what you regularly think about.

What you regularly think about, what you focus on, those thoughts that repeatedly run through your head become beliefs.

It is these beliefs that your subconscious mind picks up on and sees as instructions.

Your subconscious then follows these instructions and creates your life based on the beliefs that you hold.

So if you're not happy with your life, if things aren't going the way you want, then simply track your thoughts and uncover your beliefs.

For example: if you regularly think that it's difficult to find a job, you likely believe that it's difficult to find a job and you probably have a hard time finding a job. This is exactly what you don't want, but you're creating it without even realizing it.

The solution is to change your thinking and change your beliefs.

How do you do this?

Start developing positive thinking patterns. Replace the negative thinking with positive thoughts. Work with positive thinking exercises and you'll attract more positive situations. This is how the power of positive thinking works.

That means replacing the negative thoughts with positive thoughts.

Create a list, track your thoughts, write down those that don't work for you and then begin replacing them.

Your new thoughts may lead to new beliefs. Those new beliefs are impressed on the subconscious mind which then creates the situations, circumstances and brings the right people to help you succeed.

This is the power of positive thinking. This is what Norman Vincent Peale is referring to in the Power Of Positive Thinking.

Now there is a lot more you can do to get your subconscious mind to create more of what you want and less of what you don't want. And this means working with positive thinking exercises regularly.

by Bahole Leadership Foundation