Self-reflection on my way on the Radar Programme

 

Self-reflection on my way on the Radar Programme

      

 

I have used the Gibbs' Reflective Cycle technique to do some self-reflection and analysis of my time on the Radar Program this year.

 

v Description

A year ago, in October 2019, I was sent an email informing me that the one-year Radar Programme would be launched, consisting of a talent search, learning, skills development, monthly webinars of experts on the topic of the month, activities, awards, and much more, for Fujitsu employees across Europe.

To be nominated, you had to have at least 3 of the 6 ingredients in their Secret Sauce:

- Customer Empathy

- Thrives in Constant Change and Responsibility

- Self-Awareness

- Open & Global Mind Set

- Unbounded Curiosity

- Technically Gifted

 

At that time I thought I had 5 of the 6 ingredients, the only one that in my view did not meet was "Technically gifted", and that, although my level of English is not very high, it would help me to practice English and improve it, so I decided to join the challenge along with more than 250 other people. Finally, I was selected to enter the programme and have been able to enjoy it for a full year.

Shortly after starting the programme, looking for a way to do some activity, I volunteered in the Spanish Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) group. During the year of Radar, I have done many activities, attended all the webinars and done events, workshops and conferences that I had never done before. I started to study the Cloud with the programme and do some laboratory work, but without getting certified. We were given access to Pluralsight and later to LinkedIn Learning, in order to do Radar courses and any other that interested us. I learned about different topics and they taught us how to reinforce our skills with SkillPill and Webinars where we received guidance. Besides, I became certified as a Google IamRemarkable facilitator and have been selected in The HERoes Women Role Model Lists 2020 as "The HERoes top 100 female future leaders 2020" at number 72.

 v Feelings

Before receiving this email I was quite discouraged and unmotivated so I decided to study outside of my job to find another kind of motivation that I could not find in my job. In the Radar Programme, I saw that it was an excellent way of learning and motivating within the company, where I could feel valued, expand my network of contacts and practice and improve my English by keeping in touch with the language within my job. When I found out that I was selected I was thrilled.

During the programme, I have felt what I was looking for and needed from the beginning and much more than I expected: motivated, comfortable, valued, accompanied, creative, confident, with initiative, satisfied, supported and with a lot of support, recognition and encouragement from the people who have surrounded me.

At the beginning of the programme, we all felt motivated, excited and very keen to embark on this learning path and to know exactly what it consisted of. Little by little, as the programme progressed, many of us maintained the same enthusiasm or, in my case, even more than at the beginning, but a few others, either for lack of time or interest, left it aside or abandoned it.

In the final period, I think that many people who did not get hooked from the beginning or did not have the opportunity to get some points and keep the thread of the programme were demotivated and left it aside, others even thought that the programme was only about gaining points and gave up everything else as well.

Personally, I feel that it is a shame that they felt this way, although I understand it perfectly, fortunately, I feel very happy and proud of the course of the programme and ALL that it has given us this year.

In short, I am very pleased to have had this opportunity to take advantage of much of the programme. I am very appreciative and grateful to those people who have supported and helped me and to all the people who have made it possible for the Radar Programme to function and succeed, both those who
are and those who are no longer active with the programme:

Zara Brooke, Julia Raho, Laura Yarwood

v Evaluation

It has been a splendid experience. Radar has allowed me to expand my network, I have met and shared experiences with wonderful people, they have supported me a lot all my new network and I have learned a lot from them. In my opinion, I think I've enjoyed it so much because my eagerness to learn and to improve myself led me to do many activities that, also, coincidentally gave me points at Radar and made me rank among the top monthly.

I've always liked learning and helping people, but thanks to Radar, it's made me realize that I love learning and I consider it as my hobby, a way to escape and enrich myself. Also, through Radar, I became a D&I volunteer and I've realized that helping people, giving them advice, empowering them and seeing their progress thanks to your help gives me great satisfaction and passion to continue helping.

Because of all this, I've attended many events and I continue to learn from them and I've participated in all of Radar's proposals which I know all add value to me and make my day.

 

v Analysis

What I liked most about Radar is the learning opportunities and the encouragement he gave us by asking us to do activities that are outside of our daily lives and our comfort zone or network. But, if you
feel like participating and getting involved, it's worth doing them and getting to know other areas and ways of doing things within Fujitsu. Get to open many doors and expand your network of contacts.

I try to apply everything I have learned in my day-to-day life, both personally and professionally, and I continue to collaborate as much as possible in D&I and help colleagues on my initiative.

Nowadays I interact more with my teammates and I am the one who is always pushing to keep in touch, even if it is at a distance and with these different situations we have to live.

I think that I have improved a lot in my elements of the Secret Sauce, but I still have a great way to strengthen them more. I have expanded my comfort zone with all the learning and experience and I adapt to the changes sooner. As for my empathy, it has grown even more, and my curiosity, if it was very strong before, has no limits now.

Currently, my network of contacts has no boundaries and has expanded with people from around the world.

 

v Conclusion

Thanks to Radar I have been able to live more closely with colleagues from Diversity and Inclusion and my empathy and desire to help has grown even more.

I can't say that I have had any negative experiences, the only thing I could highlight as negative is that
by feeling involved and being a very demanding person with myself, I have given myself a rather high workload.

If I could repeat this activity, the only thing I would do would be to take the certification exam at Cloud Fundamentals, which I could not do due to lack of time and from confinement and with my studies I could not dedicate enough time to it. But, even if it's not within the Radar Programme, I'll do it.

The best thing about Radar is that you don't need to have very specific skills, you just need a desire to learn and meet people, a desire to share, involvement, initiative and perseverance.

 

v Plan of action

I will continue to participate in as many events as I can because I have found that they bring a lot of learning and different points of view. I will also try to finish my learning of Cloud Fundamentals to take the certification exam one day and I plan to take advantage of the facility they have given us with LinkedIn Learning to do courses that I wanted to do some time ago and many others that I am discovering and they attract me.

Besides, I will follow a Gallup CliftonStrengths plan, also provided through Radar and which I have not yet been able to take advantage of, in which it tells me which skills I should strengthen first and the order in which I should strengthen them.

I will continue to actively volunteer both within D&I and in other areas with other colleagues provides me with satisfaction. For example, I am currently collaborating with a colleague from Valencia, Rafael, who is deaf and I help him in GNPD - Global Disability Network Steering Committee meetings by translating from English, typing him, transcribing them and passing on his ideas to other members so that communication reaches everyone.

Also, I will continue to expand my network through GNPD meetings, D&I, GEN Empowerment and other groups and events with which I collaborate today and will continue to provide me with knowledge.

Besides, this year I have also started a university career, so I plan to continue learning and feeding my curiosity both inside and outside work and thus also be able to progress and improve my work. In this
way, I'll get the last secret sauce "Technically Gifted" that was missing from my list.

Although my year of the Radar Programme has come to an end, I still have to hold my conference at the Digital + Digital 2020 Early Career Virtual Conference on 18-19 Nov, which I am preparing with great enthusiasm and consider a great challenge because I'm learning of my topic and the conference is in English that is not my mother tongue. I'm sure I'll enrich by the conferences of my colleagues.

 

And now…                          Looking to the future and beyond!

 

ü Tip

I would encourage anyone who is curious and motivated, eager to learn and meet people, eager to share and get involved to make their way through the Radar Programme. Furthermore, in this second edition, some things have changed about the programme and I'm sure it's even better and will get better as we go through it, with our opinions and experiences. Enjoy it!

 Rocío Del Mar Cárdenas

Radar-ee 2019-2020