Congrats to Lijun Jiang

June 6, 2011 | Author: Michael McFadden

Lijun is the 2nd from the right

I had the pleasure of working with Lijun in Nigeria 5 summers ago at Access Bank.  It’s great to see she recently won the 2nd annual Excellence in Business Leadership Award.

Congrats!

Excellence in Business Leadership Award Ceremony recap

At a ceremony at Saïd Business School on 19 May, Dean Colin Mayer formally announced that Lijun (Cecilia) Jiang (MBA 2006) is the winner of the second annual Excellence in Business Leadership Award. The ceremony, attended by approximately 50 faculty and students, was a wonderful recognition of Ms. Jiang and her accomplishments in the Chinese banking sector.

Kate O’Brien and Abby Gray, current MBA students who organized the award this year, as members of the Women in Business Special Interest Group, opened the program by thanking a number of parties who helped make the award possible: Dean Colin Mayer; Inspiring Women in Leadership and Learning (IWILL); the Alumni Relations Office; the Award’s founders; the 2011 Selection Panel; and Kathy Harvey from Executive Education.

Dean Colin Mayer then spoke about the importance of the Award and recognized the two highly commended nominees, Kylie Wright-Ford (MBA 2004), Global Co-Director of Research for professional network company Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), and Susana Frazao Pinheiro (MBA 2005), founder of Local InSight, a social enterprise that empowers communities to minimize the impact and spread of diseases. He then announced the winner of the Award, Lijun (Cecilia) Jiang (MBA 2006).

Professor Eric Thun, who taught Ms. Jiang during her time at Oxford, then spoke about her work with Pingan Bank in China. He described Ms. Jiang as a natural leader, organizer, and mentor to others. He told about her contributions to the development of an SME lending platform in the Hangzhou province branch of Pingan, as well as her work with Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 women project and her gracious hosting of EMBA students on their visits to China.

Though Ms. Jiang was not able to travel to Oxford for the celebration, she submitted a short video that was shown during the ceremony. In the video, she thanked the organizers and the Selection Panel for the honor of receiving the Award. She explained how her time at Saïd Business School had helped her develop as a leader and further her career.

Peter Sherratt, who served on the Selection Panel alongside Jan Hall, Partner at JCA Group and Professor Sue Dopson, Rhodes Trust Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Saïd Business School, spoke about his experiences as Lehman Brothers’ Chief Legal Officer for Europe & Asia, and his recent work with girls’ education in Sub-Saharan Africa as
Chair of Camfed.

The ceremony was followed by an invitation-only dinner for the Selection Panel, IWILL, SBS faculty, and members of the Women in Business group.

Source: Oxford Business Alumni – News

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#Trust30 Challenge – Day 5 – Travel

June 4, 2011 | Author: Michael McFadden

Day 5 challenge:

Travel by Chris Guillebeau

(Author: Chris Guillebeau)

If we live truly, we shall see truly. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?

My Response:

I would like to visit our friends the Ochoa‘s in Argentina — spend some extended time there and reconnect with old friends and learn Spanish.  What am I doing to make sure this happens?  I’m emailing this blog post to them now … maybe we should go down in Dec/Jan of 2012/13.

+++++++

What happened to day 4?  I’ll post after I’ve completed it. The challenge is the Post-it Question by Jenny Blake

Posted in Emerson Challenge, Inspiration, Travel | 1 Comment

#Trust30 Challenge- Day 3 – One Strong Belief

June 2, 2011 | Author: Michael McFadden

Today’s writing challenge…

One Strong Belief by Buster Benson

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

(Author: Buster Benson)

My response/my strong belief:

It’s never to late to change.  A life can appear to be wasted and then be renewed.  A mess can turn into a message.  That belief is birthed from witness.  I’ve seen the redeeming love of God in many lives.  I’ve seen life change.  I’ve witnessed the power of humility, grace and surrender.  Amen to reconciliation.  It’s never too late.

Posted in Emerson Challenge, Inspiration | 1 Comment

#Trust30 Challenge – Day 2

June 1, 2011 | Author: Michael McFadden

Day 2′s #Trust30 Challenge

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

(Author: Liz Danzico)

My response:

Today is something I will never get back so make it count.

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#Trust30 Challenge – Day 1 – 15 Minutes to Live

June 1, 2011 | Author: Michael McFadden

Today is day one of the Trust30# Challenge.  Learn more about the Challenge at http://ralphwaldoemerson.me/.

Gwen Bell – 15 Minutes to Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

(Author: Gwen Bell)

My response:

To strive, to accomplish, to “succeed” all appears admirable but at the end of the day it is meaningless.  It’s all in vain if it isn’t for a higher purpose / a higher calling.  The truths of this world always seem to be in the least likely of places.  They don’t come from the loudest people, they don’t come from the most popular writers. They are hidden — but not hidden because they are difficult to find — hidden because we chose to overlook them.   My perceptions, my experience, my pre-conceived notions blind me.  Take away the blinders.  Take away the things that keep me from understanding truth and love.

Seek God with all your heart.  Seek truth.  Seek wisdom.  Ask.

He is there.  He is pursuing you.  He is pursuing me.   He has always been pursuing.

Ignore the lies.  Ignore the loudness.

Be still.  Be quiet.  Listen.  Just be.  Allow the Creator to be with you.  To speak to you.

“Where are you?” God asks.

And yet I find myself hiding.  As if God doesn’t already know where I am.  He knows where I am.  He knows my heart.  He knows my deepest secrets and deepest thoughts.  It’s time to rest in His presence.   To listen. To be found.  To be redeemed.

Thank you for the story of redemption.  The more I journey through life the more I realize I don’t understand the grace and love you provide.  The more I try to comprehend your love the more I realize I don’t.  I desire to live as your child.

–

This was a tough exercise.  Above is what I wrote down in the 15 minutes.  It was a powerful exercise for me.

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Love and Logic Refresher

May 10, 2011 | Author: Michael McFadden

Last night we met up with several parents for a a Love and Logic refresher.  We took a 4 or 6 week class with the same parents about a year or year and half ago.  I was reminded about a few things:

  1. Parenting together is fun – it’s great to have several parents all walk through this together.  Many of the parents are in the same mom’s group or MOPS.  We hang out together.  We have the same foundation and have a common language around parenting.  It’s really cool.
  2. I’m a huge fan of Love and Logic – L&L really resonates with me.  It’s simple.  They equip parents with tools and ways to raise kids.  I’m sure there are critics but I’m not one of them.

This is from the L&L website:

Love and Logic® provides simple and practical techniques to help parents
with kids of all ages:

  • Raise responsible kids
  • Have more fun in their role
  • Easily and immediately (first use) change their children’s behavior

Love and Logic is a philosophy founded in 1977 by Jim Fay and Foster W. Cline, M.D. It is the approach of choice among leading educators, parents, and other professionals worldwide.

Below are some notes from our refresher class.  Some of these notes are from our instructor and some are just my thoughts:

  • Bribery = handing over control to your kids. You are training your kids to act out of extrinsic motivations instead of intrinsic.  We want kids (and adults) to do things because of who they are (i.e. character) not what they get.
  • Screaming should not equal “I will get what I want”.  It’s important to break that expectation.
  • Your relationship with your spouse is most important. Don’t make the kids your priority.  You’ll wake up in 20 years with your spouse and not know them.  You both might have the best intentions but if you don’t make each other the priority then the kids you’ll have a rough road ahead.
  • Your kids have an emotional reservoir … and it needs to be filled DAILY.   Just because you spent good time yeseterday or went on vacation last month doesn’t mean your kids don’t need attention today.  Take at least 3 times a day to have some face time with your kids.  Take a minute or 5 minutes just to sit with them.  Don’t read a book.  Don’t watch TV.  Just be with them.
  • It’s okay to get up and leave. It’s great to teach your kids it’s okay to get up and leave.  If you don’t like the way something is going just leave.  Don’t explain.  Don’t justify.  Just get up and leave.  Remember these kids are going to be teenagers and adults soon.  Don’t we want them to be able to assess a situation and be comfortable just leaving.
  • Kids scream. That’s what they do.  You could be doing everything right and they will still scream.  Don’t feel bad.  Don’t try to always fix it or address it.  They will scream.
  • “I would have loved to give you [blank] but don’t worry you will get another chance another time”.   This might be the #1 sentence said in the McFadden household over the next few years.  This is a great way to give a consequence.  You are not leading with NO.  You are telling them they will have another chance.  But you are not giving them what they wanted.
  • Do your kids have too many toys, treats, privileges? This one hit our group hard.  One kid in our group had TV or a toy taken away and they didn’t really care.  Our instructor pointed out that in American culture our kids have way to many privileges.   TV is not really a treat.  Ice cream isn’t really a treat.  Our kids have 100+ toys.  Everything is just there.  It might be time to take some stuff away.
  • Don’t teach … make it a story. This one is hard for me to explain.  It’s rooted in several examples on how to deal with different situations.  Take a look at some of the resources L&L provides.  Listen to some of their DVDs to get more ideas.
  • Catch your kids doing good. Don’t always look for times to discipline but catching them doing good.  Catch them playing well.  “If you want your kids to listen to you start to whisper to your spouse about them” … you don’t have to tell your kids directly their doing good. Talk about them in front of someone else.  Tell someone on the phone what you saw when you know they’re listening.

Those are a few notes from last night.  Hopefully they are of a little help.

BTW, if you’re a parent I’d highly recommend getting involved with L&L.  Ideally organize a group with parents you hang out with … it makes parenting together fun.  But if you don’t have that then at least find a group around your city and attend.  You won’t regret it.

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