One of our Avos, business presentation and sales mentor, Errol Van Der Merwe, speaks about business communication and how important its role is within industry. 

His article in this month’s issue of Succeed Magazine explains the link between communication and success.

Times have changed and so has the way that we communicate in the corporate environment, and due to this most businesses need to play “catch-up”.   He explains that it’s not only what you say, it’s actually how you say it that counts.

Your perception is your reality, the manner in which you communicate can easily change someone’s perception, and hence their reality. So let Errol change your perception and read this article, enjoy!  Check out the PDF here.

Last month, my “filling the well” promise was to spend more time with my closest girlfriends. Ladies, we all know the importance of getting our dose of soul-food, comfort and good ol giggles from our sisters. As soon as I gave myself permission to do it, I outdid myself; I more than fulfilled my promise! In fact, I took keeping promises to a new level! In the past month I had fabulous evenings out with the girls, we did everything from dinner, to comedy and poetry evenings.

Jules heard my promise and must have thought “Mmm, good idea Rae, hooking up with old friends, not a bad idea”. Naturally, Jules went BIG - forget dinner dates and laughing sessions. Jules’ kind of fun involves, beauty, a bit of brains and “world-peace”. As all celebs will tell you, you can’t run from the paparazzi. Jules was photographed, hanging with her ladies. From the picture, it appears that in addition to her long list of A-list friends, she has Miss Teen SA and Miss South Africa in her circle of mates. You go girl!

Thanks Jules, what a fun afternoon spent at the SABC in support of Childline and Child Protection week. I got the opportunity to address about 200 hundred children and tell them how precious they are and that South Africa loves them. I shared a message that I hold very close to my heart and have a great passion for. I spoke about the “Power of Dreams”. Coming from a small town in rural Transkei, I know for a fact, that dreams are sometimes all children have. Those are the lucky ones; a lot of the time, everyone is so busy surviving, that dreams take a back seat, so we can’t preach this message enough! Children need to know that it is more than ok to be a dreamer and even more importantly, that we all have what it to takes to turn our dreams into a reality.

Speaking to those 6 year olds reminded me of, and refreshed my own dreams. I am happy to say that while I continue to enjoy a journey of little dreams coming true, I have not arrived, and to quote Sir Richard Branson, “I wish to never arrive”, because that’s exactly how dreams work. LIMITLESS!

Okay, Okay, I know I have been with Avo for five months now and no blog until now, but finally, after a long wait… HERE IT IS!

But guys - I work for Avo, and here at Avo on your first day you are already flying without wings.

I have already facilitated many training sessions and I am preparing to start with my very own first client. One thing’s for sure I am happy that I am here; Avo is a very different space, in the common corporate world when an employee has personal issues they are told to keep it separate from their work, but here in Avo people love crawling to work, because they know they are going to be supported and nourished until they are back at optimum level again.

I come from a Call Centre Management background were I worked myself from Call Centre Agent to Call Centre Senior Executive. I have done a lot of training in my lifetime and enjoyed it fully, so that’s why I am back. Anyway I am feeling a little tired from writing this vvvvveeeeerrrrrryyyyy long blog. I am personality type “Red” – driven and motivated, I do bullets! Not this, IN and OUT.

…Tim came. That is, Tim Ward, author of “Savage Breast“. I am vindicated - some people can deal with, understand, and appreciate my long words (a vice which has banned me from ALL copy-writing for Avo). Just to remind you all, Tim’s book was the last thing I blogged about, over a year ago now, and our conversation grabbed his attention.

Tim was out in SA from the USA doing some training in JHB, and offered us some time to talk about his book. So, Saturday afternoon we all trooped into the Avo conference room, cake and tea in hand, and went on a journey with him through the highlights of his journey through the territory of the Goddess.

And the man lived up to the promise in the book. Tim carried us from the archaeological curiosities of his travels, through archetypes, right into his his own very personal experiences, all in ways which were moving in his vulnerability to their impact on his own ways of thinking. My lasting impression: generosity of spirit, courage.

Thank you, Tim. The conversations I have had since our workshop has demonstrated to me that Tim’s ideas have the power to reach into our psyches and shake us at our roots. Women’s faces held expressions which said, “Oh!”; men found words to express their fears and hearts. I’m making headway into another of his books, “What the Buddha Never Taught”, which serendipitously reflects my current train of thought as the “Savage Breast” did a year ago.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

This last week I attended Nomsa’s first lone-ranger training. We have a rising star in our midst Avos! Move over Trinity! It was a valuable day for me on many levels, it helped me get focused and organised and this is a real stress relief for me. But in true Avo style there are always those moments where we connect with something more than just what’s in the handbook!

Nomsa was taking us through a section on career success and we were discussing perceptions and how to manage ourselves and others in the perceptions we create.

In a previous company I worked for “managing the perception” was of extreme importance, to the point where integrity and honesty were compromised. No matter what! you had to manage the perception of being or doing the right thing. It became a negative experience and not one of challenge and growth.

Nomsa shared a story of a collegue of ours who has experienced some time management challenges. In her previous place of employment people would manage her around that. If a meeting was at 9.00am they would tell her it was at 8.00am. She would arrive at 8.30 (LATE!) but actually early. When she started working with Avo, the perceptions she was creating were met with honesty and she has taken hold of the lesson and is now on time and prompt.

It made me think about our Kudos and Cockup session on a Friday morning. It is a great opportunity to help each other grow. It is a safe forum where we can be honest about our selves and grow and develop. It is then wonderful when we can celebrate our growth! I really believe that honesty is a good policy! It is a really hard thing to be honest with ourselves and each other, but who ever said self development came without pain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a lovely note from Juliet Pitman, a journo who helps us write some of our articles: what a lovely story about people getting things right!

Dear Jules

Just yesterday we were talking about the need, more than ever, for leaders to have emotional intelligence, empathy and human insight to help get their staff through the difficult period that South Africa is facing. Then this morning I interviewed Kumaran Padayachee, CEO of Spartan Technology Rentals, for the lead feature in the August issue of Entrepreneur magazine, and I was amazed to hear him reflecting just the ideas that you and I were discussing yesterday. I even asked him if he knew you as I thought he must have attended one of your courses.

Kumaran is an example of a leader who truly understands the importance of helping staff to manage and recognise their responses to difficult situations. Just one of the many things he’s implemented in his company is an arm band with “Winner or Whiner?” printed on it. Each day that you don’t whine, you get to wear it on your right wrist. On a day that you whine, you transfer it your left wrist. The goal is for staff members to be able to wear it on their right wrist for consecutive 21 days. It’s a small thing but it raises awareness and spreads the message.

So, I hope he doesn’t mind, but I just wanted to share the positive news that there are leaders who are getting it right.

I found our discussion inspirational and left his offices with a blue arm band of my own

Last week I wrote a blog and was going to come back on-line to write part two.  Then something happened over the weekend that made my trials and tribulations as an Account Manager seem very insignificant in the world…

Mongie (my domestic worker), sms’d me last Saturday to tell me that she had to go down to the Eastern Cape because her husband had been attacked. She took a bus through the night, but unfortunately she did not make it on time - her husband died during the night.  Mongie is a Zimbabwian.  She had been in this country for about a year and a half and her husband just joined her in January.  Both of them are teachers.  Jabu had finally found a teaching job and had just finished his first week of work.  He was in town asking around for a place to rent and somehow ended up attracting the attention of the wrong people. His attackers forced rat poison and bleach down his throat, poured cold water all over him and left him. 

In a way, I feel a bit guilty writing this blog after reading such an uplifting one from Jules, but on the other hand, this is an issue that is real to South Africans at the moment and we need to be reminded of the work that still needs to be done in this country. 

A huge and heart felt thank you to Jules and Avo for donating money that will help towards getting Jabu’s body back to Zimbabwe and funeral costs.  At a time when the family is dealing with such grief, it is some small way that we can help to relieve some of the burden and ease the difficult times ahead for Mongie and her family.  

I had a rare treat again last night.  I got to listen to Taddy Blecher speak at SAB’s MDP gala dinner.  And then I got to sit next to him, which was even more fun than the divine pudding (which I didn’t eat…..really!)

For those of you who don’t instantly recognise Taddy’s name, just think ‘Branson’, ‘Gates’, ‘Dell’, ‘Madiba’, and other great names that change our world.  Put him up there with them. Even though he is only in the middle of his life, he has already shown the world that it is possible to skill and empower people, sustainably.  He has shown, through building Cida University (a free university for impoverished people), that even children raised in squatter camps and squalor beyond belief, can become accountants and business leaders.  That everybody has genius in them. That our selfish world prevents many of these children from ever discoving their own genius within! 

Taddy also reminded me of what we often forget: we all have an inner genius.  We are all capable of doing very great things in this world.  And what prevents us becoming our own best self is fear.  And fear resides inside us. It’s not actually interest rates, petrol price, eskom or xenophobia that prevents us from becoming who we are, it’s our own fear. And the conquering of fear is a battle we each have to have as we find our inner genius.

And once we find our inner genius, we will find that we are, as Madiba says, ‘powerful beyond measure’.  We really have what it takes inside us to change the world for good. But that will happen as each one of us remembers. Remember who you are.