What went well?

The progress I made; what was achieved and done

It feels like I had to hit the ground running this week! Many such cases. I was all over the GTA, from travelling to downtown Toronto to chaperone and participate in an introductory tour of WSP  Global's Toronto office for the 1UP Programme... to travelling to Hamilton to help promote a pop-up booth to get high school students to join our 2-day workshop intensive... to cycling along the Meadoway for a consulting project for Bike Share Toronto with Scarborough Cycles and Toronto East Cyclists!

What could have been done differently?

Things that did not get done and/or could be changed

Things were chaotic this week. I was travelling around the province, while dealing with the aftermath of Tuesday's flood at home, which flooded my family home's basement. There were things that were not completed this week, such as graphic design for our consulting arm due to poor time management as well as time constraints. In addition, I was tasked to do research for a side project, the Guelph AT Wayfinding consulting project which yielded poor results. This could have gone better as I could have asked my supervisor for more precedents or advice instead.

What did I learn about myself when working with others?

Contributions, behaviours and values I exhibited

When working with others, we tend to keep to ourselves. This creates an insular environment in the organisation as everybody is busy and working at different times. There is an environment that feels like not too many people are interested in speaking up, especially during large meetings. However, people are much more comfortable speaking on 1-to-1 terms, which means that I will need to adjust my communications strategy to fit in with the organisation's culture. However, this revealed that perhaps most people, like me, are just shy to speak out!

What did I learn about leadership?

Leadership attributes and insights I developed

I realised that being proactive in terms of communication and taking initiative is in strong need. I learnt to reach out to people quickly and get the ball rolling in order to keep momentum and avoid losing productivity. For instance, I took my own initiative to provide some feedback for the bingo icebreaker for the upcoming conference, as well as creating riddles for the scavenger hunt that would be included in the conference as well. While this is extra effort on my part, it feels that many meetings tend to see team members not speak up in order to avoid responsibility. As a student meant to assist them for the conference, I should be responsible and take up more initiative in assisting the team with various teams.

What do I want to develop or focus on next?

What I still need to develop

I need to focus on balancing my personal life with my work affairs. It's very easy to get overwhelmed with taking on too many tasks, and this is an unhealthy relationship that has seen me work extra hours in the night in order to make up for lost time when taking care of personal matters. However, in terms of the work that I'm doing for Urban Minds, I'd like to focus on improving my graphic skills and design thinking in a way that allows me to design initiatives that are more well-tailored to our audience - such as the refinement of advertising personas, or understanding how to tailor the new and revised Ontario G9 geography curriculum towards students and teachers to gain both parties' interest in urban planning.