Intro
Hello my dear readers,
I hope you are doing well, safe and finally enjoying the warmer weather. In The Netherlands May is always full of public holidays, so it was great to take some time off and enjoy the beautiful nature in Texel island. This reminded me of my home country Lithuania a bit, which I will hopefully visit in July.
As usual I prepared my newsletter with my latest writings, videos and other useful resources. Let's dive straight into it:
My Monthly Fail Story
My Dutch slip-up
In 2021 I decided to commit sharing more failure stories on social media and less of “Look, my dear network how well I am doing!”
So here is my fifth story related to learning the Dutch language. In fact, there are many of them, but I thought this was one was especially funny.
I was chatting with a colleague of mine trying to find a suitable appointment time for both of us. This conversation went in Dutch, so I meant to write that I am free on Thursday and Friday (NL: "Donderdag en Vrijdag ben in vrij).
A few hours later I get an invitation for an appointment on Tuesday morning which conflicts my calendar. I was immediately thinking "What a hell? I have just told you that I am free only on Thursday and Friday..."
Well, apparently this was me who did a pretty stupid direct English to Dutch translation. "Vrij = free" in Dutch means that you are actually not available because you have a day-off.
The key lesson learnt here: Although Dutch use many English words, never assume they mean the same. So, indeed 'assumption is the mother of all F-ups'.
I would love to hear your failure stories too! Please share it by replying to this email.
Find Your Purpose
Talking with Mira Vasic about female leadership
Last month it was an amazing and rewarding experience to have an interview with one of the most inspiring female leadership coaches and advocates Mira Vasic from InTouch.
We talked about my early leadership experience and a career break which I took in 2019 to pursue volunteering with women in rural Uganda 🇺🇬. This taught me so much which I continue sharing in my blog.
Dear leader, do you have your organization's purpose defined?
The days when ambitious profitability plans and detailed scorecards laid out by leaders would motivate employees are over!
It’s rather the days when most employees demand for purpose and meaning in their work. There are so many global problems such as climate change or poverty that it’s becoming evident that we cannot expect our governments to solve everything.
So business organizations need to chip in and define their role and contribution. In fact, having your organization’s purpose defined is becoming a mission-critical business component.
Are you interested to read where and how to start? Check out this blog post
Personal Growth
Is impatience always bad?
We young people are often described as impatient by our wiser seniors.
While indeed I agree that impatience can become a barrier for your personal growth, I also believe it can have some advantages which we should not lose.
In my blog post I give an attempt to provide an alternative perspective to impatience - its advantages and disadvantages.
Business
Four elements you should consider to eliminate unfair bias in AI
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the next BIG thing for every business. Although it offers so many new opportunities, it doesn’t come without its challenges.
AI and ethics became a huge concern after noticing ‘unfair’ results generated by AI. My colleague Farah who is an expert in technology law recently wrote a great article on how to eliminate bias in AI.
It consists of four elements:
🔢 Data
🧮 Algorithms
🧍 Human oversight
🤲 Outcome
Check out this article and let me know your challenges or questions you have with regards to implementing AI in your business in a fair and valuable way.
Seeing the invisible: what can be seen, gets done
Most of us are like busy bees constantly trying to juggle different things at once. So how to be more productive became almost like a million dollar question.
I am super happy that Kyle Kumpf, who is a well respected LEAN thinker and practitioner, has just written a great article on this topic.
He is sharing his personal story with examples and tips on how to manage your workload in a visual way.
Check it out and let us know your thoughts and experiences on how to get done things.
The Blue Ocean Strategy
In general I am a very slow book reader. I often use a marker to highlight the sentences which resonate with me the most or I want to re-read them after a while.
Some books are so refreshingly educational that I even decide to write a blog post, which serves as a summary of my key take-aways that I believe can be useful for you too.
This has just happened with "The Blue Ocean Strategy" book by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.
Books
Leading Digital by George Westerman Didier Bonnet and Andrew McAfee
A great book 📖 for leaders who are driving digital transformation in their organization!
The authors George Westerman Didier Bonnet and Andrew McAfee of “Leading Digital” note that excelling at two capabilities is essential to execute on a successful digital transformation.
📌 Digital capabilities refer to rethinking and improving business processes, customer engagements and business models. 📌 Leadership capabilities is about envisioning and driving transformation to engage staff.
The research indicates that successful digital transformations start at the top of the company. Only the most senior executives can create a compelling vision whereas people in middle can make the vision a reality.
Make An Impact
WomenTech Global conference
I'm excited to be speaking at the WomenTech Global Conference 2021 uniting 100 000 women in tech this June! My presentation "How a watermelon overcame a 'millennial crisis'" will take place on June 8th (Tuesday) at 14:10 CEST.
I am looking forward to sharing my personal story on how I experienced a 'millennial crisis' and more importantly what I learnt in this period of time.
Help me to unlock my session and make it available to everyone with a FREE WomenTech Global Conference 2021 ticket. Vote here using the social media sharing buttons.