Dale Carnegie: The Wheel of Life
As part of the Women in Construction Month at CEA, our partners at Dale Carnegie Training delivered two workshops aimed toward women in the field (but some men participated too!)
The first was Time Management and Achieving Your Work-Life Balance Breakthrough. They first assessed our work-life balance and found that the pandemic had thrown many of our lives into a tailspin, keeping up with growing demands at work AND at home with children attending virtual school and staff shortages at work thanks to the Great Resignation. Now that we are coming out of that, it’s time to reassess and reprioritize, and develop some better processes and tools to maximize our time. We discovered the Balance Wheel as a tool to help us determine areas where we need to focus to create and lead the lives we desire. We also decided that we need to give ourselves some grace - this has been a rough patch and we all did the best we could!
The wheel shows on each spoke some aspect of a well-rounded life (and you can change what is on those spokes to create the wheel as YOU want it - hey, it’s your life!)
The participants rated themselves 1-10 on each spoke, then connected the dots to see if they could actually drive on that wheel, or if it would be malfunctioning. Then, they set goals on which spoke(s) they wanted to focus on more.
Other tools covered in this training included the Tyranny of the Urgent quadrants where we reviewed what’s important and urgent vs. important and not urgent, and determined that perhaps some delegation and/or “letting go” some time wasters can help us be more productive.
Workshop Objectives:
- Identify areas of balance and unbalance in our lives
- Identify common stressors that upset work-life balance
- Apply stress-reducing principles to help relieve stress and be more productive
- Leverage best practices for organizing our work, our schedules, and our lives
The second workshop offered was Advancing Women in Leadership on March 30. In this program, we discussed the ways that we as women can increase our visibility and our influence in our organizations and in the industry. We also identified ways that we can improve our careers and promotability. Our attendees at our workshop ranged from a student intern (still in college) to a civil engineer who has been in the industry for 38 years! We discussed the opportunities for women today vs. 30 years ago and how we can continue to expand our impact on the industry for the good of diversity and the special skills and talents women bring to the table. Finally, we looked at the Top Ten Characteristics of Successful Women Business Leaders and made an action plan for growing ourselves in these areas.
Workshop Objectives:
- Heighten our awareness of our own current reality - our image, our influence, our confidence and our attitudes
- Define gaps to achievement and identify behaviors to close the gaps
- Define opportunities to add value, influence, and drive impact
- Discover the 12 traits of companies that create a great workplace for women
- Increase connections, build relationships, and expand our comfort zones to build our network and careers
If anyone would like to learn more about these workshops and how they can bring them onsite to their organizations, please contact Marilee MacAskill.
Marilee MacAskill
C 440.666.1229 | O 440.899.8690