Knickers Re-visited

Posted by on Oct 14, 2012 in Uncategorized | No Comments

The entrepreneurial kickers have been taken out of their drawer again for the Enterprising Women development programme at Edinburgh University. The course is a reworking of the Ingenious Women programme that ran in Spring 2012.

As before, at the workshop we looked at the knickers in turn and thought about how to tune ourselves into the thinking style associated with them. These questions came from the women on the course and complement the questions that you’ll find on each knicker’s page.

Driving Knickers

Keeping the motivation high, understanding:
– what do I want to be? What kind of person, business, which skills, which knowledge?
– why is what I’m doing now better than “X”? Could be what I was doing before, what the obvious alternative would be, what the easy option is.
– what am I good at? What have I accomplished?
– why is this important to me?
– who inspires me?
– who cares about this?

Flexible Knickers

Adapting to what life brings:
– what can I salvage from this?
– is there a different problem I can solve this with?
– what’s my exit plan? At what point will I walk away?
– what will make me feel better about this? (a touch of the resilient knickers here)
– what can I learn from people who’ve done this before and overcome similar issues?

Resilient Knickers

Coping with what life brings:
– what does this look like in context? DId I take too much on? How does is measure up against other successes?
– what can I learn from this?
– when do I need to stand up and confront this – sort it out properly?
– how much time will I give this? What is my walk away point?
– how can I make myself take time out and recharge?
– why do I think I’m in the right on this issue?
– when has this happened before? Was it a disaster?
– can I visualise myself as a success, as indestructible etc
– can I remind myself that short term failures are part of long-term successes?

Organised Knickers

Getting my priorities right:
-when will I manage emails?
Can I delegate/outsource some of this?
– what needs to happen for me to do my bit? Who am I dependent on and do they have clear deadlines and objectives?
– how long will this take? Can I schedule it and stick to my schedule?
– what have I done in the last 30 minutes? What did I plan to do?

Responsible Knickers

Being reliable, credible and getting on with the dull but important stuff:
– is there a way to break down the regulatory/legal/financial stuff so it never becomes too onerous or urgent?
-have I done what I said I would do?
– what am I responsible for?
-how am I managing my work-life balance?
– what is the impact of what I’m doing? Am I putting my energy ingot he right things and seeing the right return?
– am I taking the right opportunities? Do I have time to?
– am I turning down the right things? Do I have a strategy for deciding what I do and don’t accept to take on?
– is everything I do documented?

Selling Knickers

Making our customers/peers/people around us feel special
-why am I better at this than the others who could do it?
-how do I tell people/how do they find out?
-how do I balance style against substance? In my presentation, in person?
– what’s in my track record that make people up engage with me?
– am I letting my boss know what I do?
– why am I unique? Am I telling people?

Team Knickers

It’s not about doing it all yourself:
– how do I join the networks I need to be in..
– how do I find the right people to work with? On my project? In my enterprise?
– what criteria do I have for collaborators?
– do I know how long these collaborations should last and have I communicated this?
– how do I inspire others?

You can read the full text on each individual pair of knickers on their home pages – see the pull down menus above.

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