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Gears For Careers

Embrace TEAM as a verb

If you work in a team you are more than one member of a collection of individuals. You have a responsibility to make the team strong, be dependable and work towards achieving objectives. You just TEAM everyday; here is how to do so.

Tap your top talent: You know yourself best and should tap into your top skills. Take joint responsibility for creating the kind of environment you like to work in, where you feel confident to draw on your skill sets, and opportunities to use those skills. As a team member, make efforts to know the talents of your team and how yours gel with others’ to achieve a level of collective skills required to deliver the objectives.

Engage for excellence: Don’t get so focussed on doing the day job without making time to reflect on whether you are doing your best as opposed to just ticking off items on your ‘to do’ list? What does your standard of excellence look like? How does that compare with what the team together is trying to achieve?

Account for contribution: There are two parts to your job, the first is to do it and do it well and the second is to make sure that what you are doing is productive enough to contribute to the team goals. If you had to define your contribution to team goals without referring to the tasks you do, what would you say? What would your team lose if you did not do your best work day in day out?

Motivate for discretionary effort: Find your own triggers and incentives to drive higher performance. That includes putting yourself in the best frame of mind to work well and knowing how to pick yourself up on the days you feel lousy.

Now take action: What is the one thing your team can always count on you for?

Bridal showers: farce or fact?

Should bridal showers not be abandoned in favour of send-offs, where both the bride and her groom are counselled? What purpose does it serve to teach a woman on hygiene, etiquette, lovemaking and rekindling romance if her husband is not advised on the same? LERATO MANYOZO writes.

A few weeks ago, I attended a friend’s birthday party. As is the unwritten rule of Malawian get-together-parties or gatherings of any sort patronised by both sexes, the men sat in a circle with a table of booze in the centre. They made sure that they were well away from where the women huddled together, watching the children, gossiping and sharing experiences.

Not surprisingly, the topic soon took a turn into what I have come to discover is someone’s idea of a hideous joke on womankind; bridal showers. Questions were thrown around; are they essential? Do they serve to empower or disempower brides to be? Why do speakers at bridal showers often give advice that they themselves never follow?

Why the hell do we allow each other to regurgitate the same old lies and give the same tired advice under the guise of “getting her ready for marriage” when we know, for a fact, that the information is untrue. We all know that such information will not solve any marital problems that might arise and will perpetuate the cycle of servitude in most Malawian marriages. More often than not, bridal showers leave the poor girl non-the wiser on real life challenges and how to deal with them.

For those not familiar with the term “bridal shower” in Malawi, it is customary to throw a function for the bride-to-be, often a week before her wedding. Selected female speakers offer advice on different things. Topics range from home management, grooming and etiquette, pleasing your husband, financial management and communication skills. Often times, the groom-to-be will come in to listen to the financial management bit. In other cases though, the man will not make an appearance at all.

Now, you will note that the sequence of events tells a story: women are not adequately equipped (or are not smart enough) to handle the family finances. You tell her about the cooking, cleaning, bed making and sexually satisfying her husband but when it comes to the money, bring out the man so we can talk to him while she listens. Then, after the “real talk” is over, let him walk out to take care of pressing matters while the womenfolk continue with their “chatter.”

to be continued…

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