• Notes from the Chair
• Professional Development & Empowerment – Part 6: We Possess a Common Skill, a Superpower. Have you discovered the final and necessary skill for your advancement?
         By Quenesha Caballero and Carla Gonzalez
• From Workplace to Community – 5 Recommendations to Build an Inclusive Work Culture
         By Quenesha Caballero
• Love and Work: How to Do What You Love, and Love What You Do
         By Grace Fransisca
• 2023 Excellence Award Nominations Closing on Friday, March 3 at 11:59 pm
• Upcoming Workshops and Events
• AMG Event Recaps
• Save the Date! 2023 Annual Leadership Conference
• UCLA Executive Education Update: Upcoming Programs for Spring 2023
• UCLA Management Job Postings
• AMG Board Spotlight: Ayanna McLeod
• Media Recommendations of the Month
• Monthly Thoughts

This February, AMG wants to focus on love, work, and their connections. We all spend so much time at work and always focus on our next role or what we aspire to do. We thought reflecting on our current position and considering why we chose it would be a great exercise. What was it about the role that made us want to apply? How has your current position helped you connect with your strengths and passions? What is it about the job that you love?

We all have aspects of our job that we don’t find as interesting, but research suggests that it is important for us to find some joy in what we do since we spend so much time doing it. If you have trouble remembering why you chose your role, think about reframing how you look at your job. Think about the bigger picture of what you are contributing to. At UCLA, we are preparing future leaders, future doctors, scientists, musicians, and most of all, contributing to research, teaching, and service.   

If you cannot find an outlet for your interests and strengths in your current position, you could volunteer for a new project, mentor others in your department, or join an organization that provides that outlet. There are opportunities at UCLA to utilize those strengths and give back in a way that makes you feel good about what you are doing and gives you a sense of purpose and belonging. I joined AMG to give back and feel more connected to the campus. AMG has renewed my purpose and allowed me to gain new skills.

We hope that you can find love in what you do and employ your talents in a project you are passionate about!   

Patty Gonzalez Johnson 
Chair, Administrative Management Group

Professional Development & Empowerment –
Part 6: We Possess a Common Skill, a Superpower. Have you discovered the final and necessary skill for your advancement? 

By Quenesha Caballero and Carla Gonzalez

We all possess the skill of influence; however, it is a skill that we must develop by investing in it and using it to advance our careers. Influence empowers professionals to advance projects and new opportunities. This is achieved by honing in on the attributes needed to build trust and credibility. To start, assessing your attributes and learning more about developing them further is important. There are endless resources to help professionals assess and provide them with the tools to strengthen them. Second, obtaining feedback from our peers, managers, and professionals in aspiring positions is necessary. Lastly, developing a strategy on how to effectively influence leadership to support your career and projects with room for flexibility will assist with providing you with a roadmap to your future.

Professional Influence Attributes:

• Emotional Intelligence
• Networking
• Your Brand/Vision
• Share what you do
• Develop a specific expertise

It is important to note that building and developing professional influence takes time, effort, and attention. Nonetheless, with professional influence, people are empowered to advance their personal projects and careers. This means they are more likely to receive recognition and be on the radar of leaders more regularly, which means they are among the first consideration when it comes to new opportunities. Professional influence continues to emerge as an important determiner of success; whatever your career goals may be, there are clear advantages to developing your professional influence. Thank you for joining us through the 6-part series; this piece concludes the Professional Development & Empowerment Series.

Reference: https://www.kornferry.com/insights/featured-topics/diversity-equity-inclusion/empower-underrepresented-groups-in-the-workplace

From Workplace to Community –
5 Recommendations to Build an Inclusive Work Culture

By Quenesha Caballero

When workplaces make a greater effort to promote inclusion, it has a beneficial effect on innovation and creativity. This, in turn, leads to greater employee retention, higher organizational performance, and improved employee engagement. With this in mind, below are five recommendations to build an inclusive work culture and community one brick at a time.

1. Consider hosting a diversity potluck or creating a diversity cookbook that will encourage teammates to share food from their cultures, which will not only increase employee engagement but it will provide the opportunity for greater interdepartmental networking and improved social bonds. The potluck also encourages and celebrates diversity in the workplace, which is an inherent advantage of having a multitude of unique perspectives.
    
2. Contemplate creating a formalized space to give praise and recognition on Microsoft Teams or card submissions to a designated person or group to acknowledge teammates when they are going the extra mile, helping when needed, and or contributing outside of their standard call of duty will assist in instilling a sense of belonging.
    
3. Integration and implementation of leadership inclusion initiatives and training on Cornerstone or LMS will give the leaders time to reflect upon their individual journeys when exclusion occurs so they can empathize with prospective feelings that may surface. When the connection is made, the leader is likelier to create and foster an inclusive work environment.
    
4. Using surveys and data to assess the needs and preferences of each team member frequently, on a regular and consistent basis, will be beneficial in guiding leaders to design the most effective plans for their team and promotes inclusion when goals are set and constantly cultivated with the evolution of the team as a whole and each individual team member. To include, but not limited to, ideal team-building events, group social interactions, etc.
    
5. Holding reoccurring optional support groups with themes focused on relatable topics, which provides a safe space for teammates to share, listen in and/ or engage with one another, can assist in creating a bond amongst teammates as well. These events will be hosted by teammates that receive appropriate training, such as emotional intelligence or peer support, before the group meetings which will equip everyone on how to be supportive within the support group setting.

Reference: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-ways-foster-inclusion-workplace-theresa-worthy/

So often we hear the adage “Do What You Love,” but the truth is, finding what we love and loving what we do can be a challenge – finding out what engages us, what makes us thrive, and how we can find what we love to make us stand out. I recently read a book by Marcus Buckingham, “Love and Work: How to find What You Love, Love What You Do, and Do It for the Rest of Your Life,” which I thought was apropos for this month’s newsletter theme when all of us are hit by Cupid’s arrow and love. Buckingham said there’s no space between love and work, and what we experience at home will affect what we feel at home because leaving work at work and home at home is difficult.

To find fulfillment in your work, you need to work through all the noise and find love through your work, not just despite your work, because love and work are inextricably linked. Work doesn’t simply mean a “job,” and I think this is where many of us get stuck. If we define what we do as a job, we begin to look at our work as an antagonist of love. However, suppose we break free from the conformity of finding the intersection between doing what we love and how we contribute to others. In that case, we can decode our love and turn them into our most powerful expression, which would help us be a leader who makes lasting changes.

By finding the intersection where love and workflow are in an infinite loop, we can feel the energy of one fueling the other and find ourselves living a more fulfilling life. Thus, as Buckingham said, the only that we can make a lasting contribution in life is to understand what we love deeply and to live a life we love, you must deeply understand how to contribute to others.

We are still accepting nominations for the 2023 Excellence Awards, which honor outstanding managers and staff who have made significant contributions to their organizations and campus. Please see below for the three awards:

• Distinguished Career Award recognizes an individual who has led a distinguished career over a significant period of time at the University, shared invaluable institutional knowledge with others, and made important contributions to the campus as a whole.
• EXCEL Award honors management excellence by recognizing an individual with a demonstrated record of accomplishments and who exemplifies the leadership qualities that UCLA values, such as innovation, collaboration, and creating a positive work environment.
• Rising Star Award spotlights an individual with high potential to make a positive impact throughout their career and who has established a leadership role on campus while pursuing training and development opportunities for career growth.

Click Here for the Nomination Form. Please ensure that the entire nomination packet is submitted as one PDF.

Chris Weber serves as the Assistant Dean of Business Transformation for the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In this workshop with AMG, Chris provides tips on how to package your story, which is informed by your value proposition; he recommends using The Three Things Structure and to think of presenting your interview response as a diamond shape, starting with a thesis to answer the question presented, followed by the situation, action, and concluding with a recap of the result.

Executive Program
March 4 - June 25, 2023 (Blended: Live Online & In Person)

In this intensive 4-month certificate program, rising executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs gain high-level strategies and perspectives that span the enterprise, taught by the same renowned faculty who teach in our MBA degree programs and offered in a blended format, with once-weekly sessions live online punctuated by three 3-day immersions, with the kick-off and concluding immersions taught in-person, on campus.
Learn More

Women's Leadership Institute
March 30 - June 8, 2023 (Live Online)

A transformative leadership journey, this Institute produces smart and savvy leaders skilled at navigating hidden obstacles to career advancement, capable of generating sustainable organizational value, and ready to take their careers to the next level.
Learn More

You've long been told to "Do what you love." Sounds simple, but the real challenge is how to do this in a world not set up to help you. Most of us actually don't know the real truth of what we love—what engages us and makes us thrive—and our workplaces, jobs, schools, even our parents, are focused instead on making us conform. Sadly, no person or system is dedicated to discovering the crucial intersection between what you love to do and how you contribute it to others.

In this eye-opening, uplifting book, Buckingham shows you how to break free from this conformity—how to decode your own loves, turn them into their most powerful expression, and do the same for those you lead and those you love.