This is the Sunday before Easter Sunday. It is the first day of Holy Week and celebrates Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem riding on a colt, often referred to as a donkey.Crowds of people greeted him, throwing palm branches on the road.

Palm Sunday

This is the Thursday before Easter Day. Christians remember when Jesus shared the Passover meal with his disciples, breaking bread and drinking wine.
Many Christians remember this event by sharing bread and wine in a service called Holy Communion, Eucharist or Mass. It is a reminder that Jesus sacrificed his life for mankind.

The Last Supper

Good Friday is the Friday before Easter Sunday when Christians remember Jesus' crucifixion. During Good Friday services, they reflect on the meaning of the crucifixion and the central message of Christianity.This message is that through his death on the cross, Jesus atoned for the sin of mankind which came into the world when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, and through Jesus' sacrifice mankind is reconciled with God.

Good Friday

Easter Sunday marks Jesus' resurrection.
<ul>
<li>After Jesus was crucified, his body was placed in a cave, guarded by Roman soldiers and an enormous stone was put over the entrance.</li>
<li>On Sunday, Mary Magdalene followed by some of Jesus' disciples visited the tomb to find that the stone had been moved and Jesus' body had gone.</li>
<li>Christians call this the Resurrection and they believe that God raised Jesus from the dead as a sign that He accepted Jesus' sacrifice for the redemption of sin and that mankind is forgiven and will have eternal life in Heaven.</li>
</ul>

Easter Sunday

During the Holy Week, Christians remember the last week of Jesus's life

Learn and revise about the different ways Christians celebrate festivals with BBC Bitesize GCSE Religious Studies.

Stashed ideas

Easter Celebrations: The Holy Week

Ramadan comes at a different time every year because it is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, a date-keeping system based on lunar cycles, unlike the Gregorian calendar (the one used by most of the world, including the U.S.), which is based on the solar year. A new month begins with the appearance of the new moon, or the crescent moon, and ends with the next appearance of a new moon.
The month of Ramadan thus moves backwards about 10 days every year relative to the Gregorian calendar.

Different Days Of Celebration Each Year

Different communities follow different protocols for determining when a new month begins. Some communities follow a set lunar calendar, others use scientific observations to make an official decree about the arrival of a new moon, and still, others mark a new month only after the actual sighting of the crescent moon in their community.
Though the exact dates of Ramadan are never uniform around the world, they come pretty close.

The Days Of Celebrations Vary Even Within The Community

The month-long holiday is observed principally in Muslim-majority countries in Africa and Asia but also by the believers around the world, including the roughly 3.3 million Muslims living in the U.S. During Ramadan, from sunrise to sunset, observant Muslims (with some exceptions, mostly health related) are forbidden to eat or drink (or smoke, or engage in sexual activity) to purify their thoughts and increase their devotion to God.

How Ramadan Is Celebrated

The Muslim holy month will last from early June to early July of 2016

Why Ramadan Starts on a Different Day Every Year

Individuals and organizations need to constantly gather new sources of information in order to expand their knowledge and grow, creating a need to incorporate multiple personas. These personas are driven by the idea that no matter how successful a company currently is, no one can afford to be complacent. The world is changing at an accelerated pace, and today's great idea maybe tomorrow's anachronism. The learning roles help keep your team from becoming too internally focused, and remind the organization not to be so smug about what you “know”.

Ten Faces Of Innovation: The Premise

This is the person who ventures into the field to observe how people interact with products, services, and experiences in order to come up with new innovations. 
This person is good at reframing a problem in a new way, humanizing the scientific method to apply it to daily life. Anthropologists share such distinguishing characteristics as the wisdom to observe with a truly open mind; empathy; intuition; the ability to "see" things that have gone unnoticed; a tendency to keep running lists of innovative concepts worth emulating and problems that need solving.

The Anthropologist

The Experimenter celebrates the process, not the tool, testing and retesting potential scenarios to make ideas tangible. 
A calculated risk-taker, this person models everything from products to services to proposals in order to efficiently reach a solution. To share the fun of discovery, the Experimenter invites others to collaborate, while making sure that the entire process is saving time and money.

The Experimenter

The Cross-Pollinator draws associations and connections between seemingly unrelated ideas or concepts to break new ground. 
Armed with a wide set of interests, an avid curiosity, and an aptitude for learning and teaching, the Cross-Pollinator brings in big ideas from the outside world to enliven their organization. People in this role can often be identified by their open mindedness, diligent note-taking, tendency to think in metaphors, and ability to reap inspiration from constraints.

The Cross-Pollinator

The Hurdler is a tireless problem-solver who gets a charge out of tackling something that's never been done before. When confronted with a challenge, the Hurdler gracefully sidesteps the obstacle while maintaining a quiet, positive determination. 
This optimism and perseverance can help big ideas upend the status quo as well as turn setbacks into an organization's greatest successes—despite doomsday forecasting by shortsighted experts.

The Hurdler

The Collaborator is the rare person who truly values the team over the individual. In the interest of getting things done, the Collaborator coaxes people out of their work silos to form multidisciplinary teams.
In doing so, the person in this role dissolves traditional boundaries within organizations and creates opportunities for team members to assume new roles. More of a coach than a boss, the Collaborator instils their team with the confidence and skills needed to complete the shared journey.

The Collaborator

The Director has an acute understanding of the bigger picture, with a firm grasp on the pulse of their organization. Subsequently, the Director is talented at setting the stage, targeting opportunities, bringing out the best in their players, and getting things done. 
Through empowerment and inspiration, the person in this role motivates those around them to take centre stage and embrace the unexpected.

The Director

The Experience Architect is that person relentlessly focused on creating remarkable individual experiences. This person facilitates positive encounters with your organization through products, services, digital interactions, spaces, or events. 
Whether an architect or a sushi chef, the Experience Architect maps out how to turn something ordinary into something distinctive—even delightful—every chance they get.

The Experience Architect

The Set Designer looks at every day as a chance to liven up their workspace. They promote energetic, inspired cultures by creating work environments that celebrate the individual and stimulate creativity. 
To keep up with shifting needs and foster continuous innovation, the Set Designer makes adjustments to a physical space to balance private and collaborative work opportunities. In doing so, this person makes space itself one of an organization's most versatile and powerful tools.

The Set Designer

The Storyteller captures our imagination with compelling narratives of initiative, hard work, and innovation. This person goes beyond oral tradition to work in whatever medium best fits their skills and message: video, narrative, animation, even comic strips. 
By rooting their stories in authenticity, the Storyteller can spark emotion and action, transmit values and objectives, foster collaboration, create heroes, and lead people and organizations into the future.

The Storyteller

The Caregiver is the foundation of human-powered innovation. Through empathy, they work to understand each individual customer and create a relationship. 
Whether a nurse in a hospital, a salesperson in a retail shop, or a teller at an international financial institution, the Caregiver guides the client through the process to provide them with a comfortable, human-centered experience.

The Caregiver

Successful businesses build fresh innovation strategies into the fabric of their operations. They do it year-round and in widely differing parts of their enterprises. When the team’s creative engine is running at top speed, the momentum and synergy can keep a company ahead through bad times and good.

The practice of innovating is too valuable a skill to overlook. Businesses that downplay the importance of pushing the boundaries and asking the questions run the risk of becoming stagnant, inflexible, and irrelevant. What the author argues in The Ten Faces of Innovation is that “innovation” is more than a buzzword found on the covers of business magazines; it’s a lifestyle and your company’s best secret weapon.

The author of the bestselling The Art of Innovation reveals the strategies IDEO, the world-famous design firm, uses to foster innovative thinking throughout an organization and overcome the naysayers who stifle creativity. The role of the devil's advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to step outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility. Nothing is more potent in stifling innovation. Over the years, IDEO has developed ten roles people can play in an organization to foster innovation and new ideas while offering an effective counter to naysayers. Among these approaches are the Anthropologist—the person who goes into the field to see how customers use and respond to products, to come up with new innovations; the Cross-pollinator who mixes and matches ideas, people, and technology to create new ideas that can drive growth; and the Hurdler, who instantly looks for ways to overcome the limits and challenges to any situation. Filled with engaging stories of how Kraft, Procter and Gamble, Safeway and the Mayo Clinic have incorporated IDEO's thinking to transform the customer experience, The Ten Faces of Innovation is an extraordinary guide to nurturing and sustaining a culture of continuous innovation and renewal.

The Ten Faces of Innovation

Think about your e-communication like cholesterol, meaning that there are two kinds of conversational tones: positive and negative.
<ul>
<li>Positive-toned communication: phrases such as “This is great,” “I really like . . . ‚” and “Thank you,” through greetings (“Dear so-and-so”) and closings (“Best wishes”), and also in emojis such as smiley faces etc.</li>
<li>Negative-toned communication: negations and other phrases like “I don’t think . . .” and “This is a problem” and the even harsher “I am not happy with . . ..”</li>
</ul>
It is the ratio of positive to negative that is really important for our e-communication.

Conversational Tones

According to researchers, three types of engagement can be measured via your words: emotional engagement, social engagement, and task engagement. 
Let’s face it: relationship building is more difficult over email than face-to-face. One key to building a relationship via e-communication is to be engaged.

The Types Of Engagement

As a second step in analyzing your own email communication, count all your pronouns—e.g., “I,” “me,” “you,” “us,” “our,” “we,” etc. Personal pronouns reflect attention to people rather than to objects or concepts. 
The more personal pronouns are present, the more people are paying attention to people—themselves as well as others. First-person pronouns are interesting.

You And I

Using a lot of “I, me, mine” words can reflect a neurotic or ruminative self-focus, in natural conversation it often takes the form of hedging (e.g., “I think this might work”). But it also can reflect dominance.
According to researchers, the ideal rank order of personal-pronoun use in negotiation is first: “you,” second: “we,” third: “I,” and fourth: “they.” Your total number of pronouns is a reflection of your social engagement. Also, circle all the verbs (action words) in your email (“work,” “talk,” “meet,” “align,” etc.). These reflect task engagement.

I, Me, Myself

Examine at least three exchanges between you and another person, using these three indexes. Are you engaged? Is the other person engaged? On what dimensions: emotional, social, task?
<ul>
<li>First, do not begin messages with anything negative. Why? This creates a general gloomy tone and negativity in the other person such that everything that follows will be interpreted as negative. So begin with the positive.</li>
<li>Second, aim for at least a two-to-one ratio in your positive–negative messaging.</li>
</ul>

The Task

People behave differently when they are not face-to-face. They are more negative and, often, more presumptuous, conveying the impression that they are entitled and not easy to work with. This is a problem because excessive pride or hubris harms our ability to locate the sweet spot in any kind of negotiation. If we are unwittingly conveying negative impressions in non-face-to-face interactions, we need a wake-up call!
Excessive pride may blind us to finding sweet spots. People quickly develop impressions of our personalities on the basis of very limited information.

Putting Pride Aside

This excerpt from Negotiating the Sweet Spot: The Art of Leaving Nothing on the Table offers three tips for writing emails that engage and persuade.

How to Negotiate via Email

People around the world use different productivity tools for getting ahead of the competition and making the most of the productive time available. 
Keep in mind that you are going to need various tools for different reasons. You need to subscribe to one of the premium project management suites for handling your deadlines and milestones. You can select a conferencing tool for conducting regular meetings. It is possible to pick a collaboration tool for working on different tasks together with the team members

Get hold of proper project management tools

Many managers and team leaders commit the mistake of poking the team members on random occasions during the day or night. But this is not a good practice. You must allow some private space to the workers that will allow them to maintain a work-life balance. So you are going to need a system for maintaining the right balance in any event. You must communicate with the team depicting how the team members have to manage the work hours and the available time through the working week. You need to empower them to be actively available during working hours without any excuses.

Setting up the stringent work schedules

The remote workers can communicate just via messages, periodic calls, emails, and conferences. they will find that it is quite simple to lose track of the goals and requirements of a project. For dealing with the problem, you need to ensure that you are communicating all the important things as far as possible. The best method for going about it is by documenting everything descriptively and then distributing the notes to all your team members. If you are clear about your goals and are setting expectations upfront, both sides will be more confident about their tasks.

Communicate the goals and requirements clearly

These remote workers are many times working from a wide range of geographical locations and all of them will have a separate take on what the project must look like on Google. Keep in mind that search engines give a different input to people living around the world. For dealing with this problem and conducting thorough research from all members’ perspectives, you are required to utilize a VPN. It allows you to change your location on the internet. VPNs can also be used for enhancing the protection and security of your project.

Using a VPN for research

You must always take enough time for reflection on how things are turning out to be and if there is something that requires a change. Complete a final inspection especially after a huge task or a project because it is extremely beneficial to the project. This will highlight the areas where you can improve for people that are adjusting their style of work lately. It is a good idea to perform an independent after-implementation review after you have completed a large project or a task.

Take sufficient time for reflection

How to Safely Manage Your New Project Effectively in Remote Settings

There’s a very clear and current phenomenon of people experiencing a waning interest in their work.Particularly at the beginning of the pandemic, people started spending a lot more time at home and that gave them a lot more downtime. When you’re in the office and it’s hectic, you don’t have as much space and time to think. Being at home made people start to question: how can I live a life or have a career that’s in line with what I’m actually interested in?

Waning interest

Many jobs were stripped down to their most essential components. Workers who may have said they enjoyed their jobs before going remote realized it wasn’t the work itself they liked.People were no longer going into a workplace, and they no longer had those social connections. And for a lot of people, that’s what ties them to their job, whether they realize it or not.

A change of perspective

Staying at a job while your interest in work wanes is difficult, especially if that disinterested feeling has popped up suddenly.The most obvious solution, of course, is to leave. But, losing interest in a job is a normal reaction to the pandemic shake-up. It doesn’t necessarily mean you need to quit or change careers. There may be ways to fire up a positive relationship with your job – even if it means simply making it more palatable for now, while you look for an alternative.

Quit or re-kindle? 

For many, the pandemic has deteriorated our relationship with our jobs. Can you re-ignite the spark – and should you even try?

Why so many workers have lost interest in their jobs

Many people think they've found their dream job, often based on nothing more than an ad. They may seek guidance on how to overcome not being hired or be excited that they've been hired.
But, jobs don't always look the same from the outside as from the inside. The dream job can quickly turn sour by a terrible boss, toxic culture, or pressing workload.

The myth of a dream job

When people buy into the myth of a dream job, it often sets them up for disappointment. Some job searchers may be so convinced that they've found the ultimate job that they fail to notice the danger signs. People may also stay in bad situations longer than they should because they find it difficult to reconcile their ideal job with walking away. You can only know if it is a great job after you've been in it for a while. Until then, it's better to look for "interesting possibilities."

Reframe the "dream job"

Think you’ve spotted your “dream job?” Don’t be so sure.

There’s No Such Thing as a “Dream Job”

Work culture is a crucial ingredient in any company's success. It helps us reach success so it is important for us to protect it and take good care of it, not only for the company's sake but also to foster a great working environment.
Employees that are satisfied with their environment are more productive than those who are dissatisfied.

Work Culture

<ol>
<li>Gather qualitative and quantitative input at all levels (surveys, one-on-one meetings, and regularly scheduled feedback). Use data to guide you into fostering a safe environment for your employees.</li>
<li>Start rewarding people for speaking truth to power. Managers tend to shut down any data they receive that feels like criticism, however, honest feedback should never be ignored.</li>
<li>Values are the bedrock of your culture and every single person should know your values by heart and reflect it in their work.</li>
</ol>

Cultivating Work Culture

Culture is and never will be finished. It takes years to create but only s to decondsestroy. There is no one winning formula; but, with hard work and steady improvements, you will be able to achieve the culture you want.
There is no "right" culture or anything close to perfect but it is beneficial for us to learn how to embrace honest feedback, hold ourselves accountable to living our values and develop ourselves to be the kind of leaders who build companies where people want to work.

Keep Trying and Keep Moving Forward

These principles will guide you no matter your company’s size or geographic location.


Career

A manufacturing executive on the industry-agnostic steps to forming strong culture

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

"The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."

"Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today."

"It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up. "

"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated."

"We generate fears while we sit, we overcame them by action."

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently."

"The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others."

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

"You are never too old to set another goal, or to dream a new dream."

No matter how positive a person you are, you are not a robot. It is easy to get the wind Knocked out of you when the obstacles of modern life get in your way. So if you’re in need of a confidence boost, some inspiring advice.
Here are my top 20 inspirational quotes of all time, for entrepreneurs especially.

Quotes to Inspire Entrepreneurs on the More Difficult Days

Thousands of professionals who excel in their current role get promoted in an organization and before they know it, they find themselves in senior and leadership roles with more responsibility, but without any support or training.
These professionals are good at their core jobs where they manage themselves or a small team. Being thrust in a leadership role where their decisions impact the whole organization can backfire for many.

Accidental Leaders

A competent manager who is given a leadership role starts to have these problems:
<ol>
<li>Converging planning and execution, which requires people management skills, become a gray area for accidental leaders.</li>
<li>While they excel in short-term deliveries, accidental leaders need to understand that their work will now not impact the here and now, but the future of the company.</li>
</ol>

Accident Leaders And People Management Skills

An accidental leader is not trained for divergent thinking.
Change is crucial for any company, and a leader has to ensure that it remains growing, vibrant and viable by constantly driving the change using acquisitions, divestment, expansion or contraction.

Embrace Change

<ol>
<li>Make a difference by leading in an inspired way, embracing change and being courageous.</li>
<li>Have the willingness to live with ambiguity and uncertainty, while being optimistic.</li>
<li>Identify the team that is being led by you and study the leadership model that you should be providing.</li>
<li>Do a self-assessment and find out the skills that are lacking in you, then finding the right support structure to imbibe them.</li>
</ol>

What Accidental Leaders Need To Do

Given the responsibility but often not the support. Given the title but often not the training. Really good at their functional expertise – make for great architects or engineers or whatever they excel in – but they struggle with the demands of leadership. They're accidental leaders.

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Makenzie
@makenzie

Easter Celebrations: The Holy Week

Why Ramadan Starts on a Different Day Every Year

The Ten Faces of Innovation

How to Negotiate via Email

How to Safely Manage Your New Project Effectively in Remote Settings

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Makenzie @makenzie

Easter Celebrations: The Holy Week

Why Ramadan Starts on a Different Day Every Year

The Ten Faces of Innovation

How to Negotiate via Email

How to Safely Manage Your New Project Effectively in Remote Settings

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Makenzie
@makenzie