PAL Portfolio Verena Jesslyn Lan - Clayton - 23592915

Personal Testimony I was a student ambassador last year

and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

I am happy to say that I have invested my time wisely in spending

another year learning about leadership in various contexts with PAL. Thank you Monash Business School for the opportunity to learn beyond what I

am studying. I feel like I have understood myself better through the completion of the Ambassadors and

Leaders program!

- Verena Jesslyn Lan

Double Degree Bachelor of Commerce/Arts

Table of Content Leadership Symposium 2

SPARKS Trivia Night 3

Project Management #3 4

Leadership for New Managers 4

Monash Alumni Mentoring Program 5

Blue Print Youth Leader Workshop 5

Leadership Seminar #2: Kay Patterson 6

Webminar Celia Hodson/Ben Pecotich 6

Skills Workshop - Building Psychological Capital 7

Genesys 15Q + 7

Monash University Open Day 8

Fundraising Bake Sale 8

Monash Student Blog 8

Embrace Education 8

Monash College Transition Program 8

Leadership Symposium

Leaders Seminar

Skills Workshop

L E A D E R S P R O G R A M 2 0 1 5

Self-Select

LEADERS PROGARM BUSECO PAL 2015

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Leadership Symposium Monash University Caulfield / 10-11th February 2015

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Social responsibility is a major concern that is often overlooked by the many great leaders I observe. The impact it has upon the broader community cannot be ignored. As Creel Price said on the day “use the gift that success offers you to influence the world for good”. It’s to see opportunity where it might benefit others more

than it could benefit myself.

LEADERSHIP

It was a very eye-opening experience to be exposed to four very different topics of social responsibility, entrepreneurship, leadership and innovation.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Bernard Chu, owner of Luxbite taught me how anyone can be an entrepreneur without a degree in business or accounting. Hard work, being self-motivated and working with the competitor as opposed to competing with them could benefit your. Learn from your competitor and be generous as well of the knowledge you have. Leaders often do not have to worry about the

subordinates who are working for them. It is the people who have chosen not to do what they have been told.

Eliminating the troublemaker does not solve the problem, because another one will eventually appear. But the ability

to empower each and every single one of them would be more viable in the long-term. INNOVATION

Innovation could simply be putting two separate

things/ideas together to create something new!

Innovation could be a simple as that, seeing

what has not been done or doing something

that other people could have thought of but

have not put an action to.

LEADERS PROGARM BUSECO PAL 2015

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SPARKS Trivia Night

I learnt many valuable lessons in running a small-scale project. Choosing the right team members to work with when starting a project is crucial. Understanding the motivation for each member and to define success/failure of a project collectively at the start should have been done. There was no way to assess or predict things that could go wrong along the way. Overall, the event itself was a success! Many strangers came home with new friends and people had a good time and good food! There were a lot to learn and reflect on working with people you don’t know or chose to work with.

FOR FUTURE REFERENCE: ! Establish communication channel

from the beginning! ! Have ground rules about how

problems will be addressed before problems actually arise

! Hold members accountable for the work they do not end up doing right

Monash University Clayton / 5th of August 2015

LEADERS PROGARM BUSECO PAL 2015

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PROJECT MANAGEMENT #3

! It is important to reflect as a team what went wrong and went right on the day

! Assess if initial goals have been met, recognise if mistakes were made

! Celebrate the small success

! Make recommendations for future improvement

! Thank the people who have helped the success of the project deliveries in any ways

! It is also important to reflect personally on what one does wrong, apologise and learn from their mistakes

Leadership for New Managers

Monash University Clayton / 28th September 2015

Monash University Clayton / 29th September 2015

! Mental models: Theories about how we think the world works, which is usually

unconscious. It drives what we often don’t see. This model has no rights or

wrongs, it just needs to be useful. When you guess about someone else’s mental

model, it might be inaccurate.

! Take a learning perspective or respect perspective about them. Don’t walk over

our own values and don’t walk over other people’s values

! Servant leadership that actually works is for profit multinational organisations.

Value Behaviours Integrity ! If I was trusted with a job I would do it to the best

of my ability Trustworthiness ! If I was trusted with an information, I will not

misuse it. Action-oriented ! If I see something that has to fixed, I will do

something about it rather than just talk about it. Come up with a solution not criticism.

Justice ! If I see unfairness at work towards customer or other coworker, I would stand up for the person or defend the right thing

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Monash Alumni Mentoring Program

Recognising the importance of having a mentor who is already in the industry I am trying to enter to was really valuable. Hearing the difficulties that my mentor had to go through to get to where he is at the moment was really valuable. Cause often what I see at face value of someone’s job, could actually be misleading. Having a mentor is like having a

motivator and a guide. It is necessary that at any stage of my career to be a mentor and to have my own mentor. My mentor told me about the turning points in his life that changed him from his old job to what he was currently doing. He suggested that I

reflected on my strengths and weaknesses. He then advised me to work on to improve my weaknesses as well as embrace my

strengths across the work that I will be doing in the future. I learnt to focus and to specialise in one area, rather than trying to do

everything!

Monash University Caulfield / 4th of June 2015

Blueprint Youth Leader Workshop Australian Catholics University / 18th April 2015

How to present to young people? Do not talk yourself down when you begin your talk. Research on the topic you will be talking about. Stick to 3 main ideas that you want the listeners to walk away with. Make sure there is interaction with the audience. Use repetition and examples to prove your point.

How to create a safe environment for young people? Make sure you have the entire paperwork ready for doing your job (Food Safety, Police Check, Working With Children Check). Get the participants’ details and emergency contacts when working with under 18 years old. Select an appropriate venue with supervision ratio of 1:6 between supervisor and the children. Do not have any one-to-one conversation with children in a room with the door closed.

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Leadership Seminar #2: Kay Patterson Monash Clayton Campus / 22nd April 2015

Every great leader will be exposed to political issues at some stage of their career. You need be aware of members of parliaments and know the name of your senator (any of the 12). What I learnt then was to include myself into political space. I have to learn about the structure of Australian government, know the house of representatives, know about the council member of your area. Get to know the right people who will be “climbing up the ladder” with their positions. Invite them to events before the person becomes well-known, because then they would have more time to spare for you. What bills get passed on may influence the industry that I will be working in. Which politicans get elected may influence where the money and funding goes to when doing research. A way to be educated about this knowledge could be through watching online enquiry, read the newspapers and watch the news regularly. Being international student, learning the names and structures first could be good starting point!

Celia Hodson Webminar: Introducing the Business Canvas Model Online / 18th April 2015

The business canvas model is a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool that allows you to describe, design, challenge, invent and pivot your business model. It is a simple framework with nine building blocks common to most organisations including not-for-profits and social enterprises. It focuses on the content rather than layout.

! It begins by looking at the key partnerships, then key activities and key resources. ! Have a value propositions of

what the business could offer ! Build customer relationships and

establish channels ! Understand the various

customer segments ! Monitor cost structure and

revenue streams for the business

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Building Psychological Capital Monash Caulfield Campus / 30th September 2015

THIS WAS MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE! With his background in organisational psychology, Ross Donohue presented many findings from clinical research and taught me how to apply what I have learnt into my daily activities. He taught me how self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience are common characterstics in successful leaders. Self-efficacy is the belief that a person has that they can reach their goals or desired outcomes in life. Person with high self-efficacy has healthy behaviour change, tolerance to stress and positive behaviour. I scored a little lower than the mean than Australian CEO’s. The way to develop self-efficacy is to master something by experience, social modeling and social persuasion (get a mentor!). In era full of war, depression and refugees, leader that gives hope will be better liked than those who constantly induce fear into the public. That a person who has meanings in life are more likely to survive and live happily than those who does not have a purpose in life. Even though the meaning of life could be something trivial. Hope is a cognitive set or positive emotional state that is based on a reciprocally derived sense of successful. Hopeful people are attractive! Optimism: eliminate negative self-talk. Reframe negative thoughts more positively. Do not ruminate on negative events but ask yourself why you are successful across different areas. Accentuate positive qualities! This is also called appreciative inquiry. Resilience and the ability to bounce back from adversity! Apply problem-focus rather than emotion-focus coping strategies. Focus on solving the problem and avoid thinking traps! ☺

Genesys 15Q+ Monash Caulfield Campus / 1st October 2015

It was a great day to learn and reflect about my strengths and weaknesses as well as my leadership, thinking and coping style across situations. I found that in team role, I have a penetrating mind, together with the capacity to evaluate my own ideas as well as others; to enable the group to come up with an integrative statement about what should be done. I work best when I am allowed flexibility and positively encouraged. Given the right circumstances, I could be an excellent strategist! However, I may, at times, lack sense of confidence and be prone to feeling of self-doubt. I may be disinclined to persevere when confronted with tedious task. Hence, I have to set myself in an environment where I can be intellectually challenged. I can also be self-sufficient at work without needing much group support and supervision when completing a task. It was a great day to reflect on my strengths and weaknesses!

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SELF-SELECT Monash University Open Day (4th of August, 2015) I believe in studying in an environment where students have inquisitive mind. There is no better way to share what I believe in with new students and learn about how to market education to the correct demographic group. I had countless conversation asking people about what they want to learn and why and made them feel welcome and positive upon their arrival to Clayton Campus on Open Day. Monash Student Blog (Semeseter 2, 2015) I gave myself a lot of time to reflect on what would be published online and carefully select my words on how I want to sell my brand. Fundraising Bake-Sale (24th March & 24th September) For passion of social justice I was involved in two separate bake sales. The first one I was in charge of the marketing and publicity of the event. I created the poster to encourage donations of baked goods prior to the event. I baked for both occasions as well as man the stall along with a team of 12 others. At both times we were able to raise over $1000 within 7 hours of sale! All proceeds were donated to Caritas Australia and St. Vinnies Education Program. Both charities help send kids to school in third world countries. Embrace Education (Semester 1, 2015) I went to two different schools twice a week to teach English (in the morning) and Maths/computer/English (in the afternoon) to secondary colleges students. It was interesting to see the different learning styles that Australian students adopt. Their attitudes towards learning was very different from where I came from. Monash College Transition Speech (1st of October, 2015) I enjoyed public speaking and sharing my experience with students transitioning from Monash College to Monash University. I realized that over the years, I get less nervous doing public speaking. I also learnt to interact with the audience and be positive when giving a talk!