Core Milestone School

It was indeed a very productive day yesterday!

Not because I finished something but because I learned a lot from great leaders and mentors!

I had a pleasure to be invited at the yearly Core Milestone School.

We had the pleasure to have great speakers from Accenture and from their real life career experiences, it helped me relate even more on how I can perform at my best, how I can help my team and how I can move forward!

I would like to highlight some of the key take aways that I will always remember! 

I. Before the speakers talk about their part of the presentation, great introductions were given by them. It was categorized into two aspects: 

 - Me at Work

 - Me at Play

For me this is one important aspect of being an Accenture employee. That we are "still" able to do things based from what we like doing and not talk about work all the time! It's interesting to find out what our leaders' interests and past times are!

II. Road to Success - Pooja Sharma

The road to success is not a road of success stories and happy moments.  The road to success will entail failures, mistakes that will keep us up to speed on what we should do to make things better. 

We need to understand the business (easier said than done). We need to know how we can give value to them and how we can all be true Business Partners!

We need to "always" focus on results / performance and focus on how we can all be greater than.  

Leveraging on the strengths of our team in delivering high performance is also key to success.  As well as continuous learning and self development.  Always seek greater responsibilities because it is through this initiative that we can provide more value to our clients and more learning to ourselves.

III. Your role as a People Developer - Sheila Aguinaldo

You cannot buy a pill to make you a people developer overnight.  This is a behavior that takes a lot of time and effort to build.  Aspiring to to be a people developer means one is open for development, open to be mentored, open to recieve feedback.  

For me, there is no such thing as a perfect people developer, because as what was shared by Sheila - different strokes for different folks, thus, one leadership style may not be applicable to all employees.  As a people developer one must be "again" open for feedback and must know how to be flexible in a particular situation.

It is also important to build trust and relationship not only to the people you work with but specifically with your team.

IV. Year one with Accenture - Anna Medina

Inspiring to know that she has been with different roles within HR, giving her the opportunity to showcase her talents and strengths.  She left Accenture, then finally saw the light and came back to Accenture because she thought that the grass was greener on the other side but only to find out that there were no grass to begin with!

Her key take aways are (which i agree) 

 - Do not be afraid to go out of your comfort zones 

 - Find a mentor

 - Have that balance for work and life

V. Career advice countdown - Alex Gasmena

It was a very interesting discussion from Alex - it was after lunch (where everyone wants to sleep) but what happened to me was exactly the opposite. I had to listen to what he has to say because I know that it would be beneficial for me as I grow my career with Accenture! 

Key take away would be: 

 - Building Network - for me this is a pretty easy thing to do but building the "right" network is a whole different story all together.  He shared a lot of tips about banking on our network and it's something that inspired me to do as I go along with my career here at Accenture! 

 - Find a mentor and Be a mentor - 

Finding the perfect mentor for your style is not as easy as choosing a dip for your taco. It entails time and relationship building, thus it's important that we value the things that we learn from our leads, our role models. As we look at them as our inspiration, we can slowly look at them as our mentors!

Be a mentor - someone who can be asked for guidance and support. Someone whom people can look up to! 

 - Market yourself - know the perfect time to sell your achievements! No one will market yourself better than you. Ofcourse our managers can do it and it's a plus points for us but we can always do it at the right time!

After completing the day, it felt a lot easier to perform my role at this level and I am excited to do everything that I have learned on the job! 

What excites me more is I have my friends whom I know will help me with my journey in Accenture! 

My final take away with this fruitful event will be:
Being promoted to the next level is a great indication of performance, however, it is being relevant to the business that weighs more than anything else!  ^_^

Thanks Accenture for this opportunity!! 

Xoxo