By Catherine Lam, CPA, CMA
How important is communication? Being in IT, I work with a lot of developers, technical architects, and folks whose first language is not English. First and foremost, I wrote this post for people in the North American corporate world, where the primary language of business is English. However, I still think that even if you’re in other parts of the world, the concepts here still apply. Read More…
By Catherine Lam, CPA, CMA
Have you heard of Guanxi? Chances are, you might have encountered this term in passing when talking about business. If you grew up in a Chinese household like I did, you’d definitely grew up with it. It’s the Chinese term for relationships. The term guanxi (pronounced ‘gwon-shee’), is usually used in the context of doing business. Read More…
This is the most common statement I hear. And most of the time it can be correct. Read More…
By Cat Lam, CPA, CMA,
In the past few weeks, I attended an extraordinary number of networking events. One thing that is synonymous with networking is, of course, the exchange of business cards. Now, you might as well know. Ask me what I do with these business cards afterwards, and I’ll show you the top left corner of my desk where a pile of them sit collecting dust. Read More…
If you’re anything like me, I’m naturally an introvert. I am uncomfortable in large group settings. However, I know that if you want to build your network, there is only so much you can do online. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to suck it up and interact with people real time. Read More…
Millennials are generally defined as “a person reaching young adulthood around the year 2000”… As an elder of said generation, I feel it’s important to understand why Gen Y, those born in the 1980’s and 1990’s, is of particular interest in Pop Culture, Marketing and specific to my current thesis, the workplace.
For a hiring manager, whether you are a Baby Boomer, Gen X or even a Millennial yourself, how to motivate, engage and retain the Millennials will be important –It’s not a reason to change your business, your hiring practices or your beliefs but “they” say that millennials will make up 75% of the workforce by 2030… 75 PERCENT of the workforce – that’s a staggering number! Read More…
Making the decision to bring in a new person onto your team is an extremely important decision, especially in our economic times, where you don’t have the budget (or time) for a poor hire.
Done poorly, hiring the wrong person can be an extremely expensive mistake that could set you back months and potentially do long-term damage within your team, to say nothing of the external stakeholders that will be negatively affected. Read More…
Step One: Show Up
It sounds simple, yes, but how many times have you been invited to an event and you have every intention to go, and then last minute “something comes up” and you bail? Probably more often than any of us would like to admit. Read More…
Career envy: we’ve all had it, but have we all overcome it?
As someone who battled with this for many years, I can confidently tell you that this type of envy is not something that is easily treated, nor is it easy to identify. You become this person who ends up being a shell of who you “once were”; you wake up one morning and find yourself at the bottom of some deep dark hole and you don’t know how you ended up there…
Let me back up a few years and give you a better understanding of how I ended up where I am today… When I was in high school, my parents encouraged me to pursue whatever career I wanted, but in their experience and very strong opinion, a “useful degree in business” was best. Read More…
The Power of Recharging and the Importance of Balance
As a person that loves to be busy I also love my downtime and try to live my life as balanced as I can. This sense of balance just recently came into my life in my early 30’s as I finally saw the value and extreme importance in working hard but also “letting things go”. Read More…
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