Dear Toastmaster and friends, I am doing my internship job in GE, your know General Electric（通用电气）. GE has two offices in Shandong province, one in Jinan, and another office is in Qingdao. I was assigned to Qingdao Office and I was so excited about my new job, because I could work in this great company and enjoy the beautiful sea and eat seafood in Qingdao.
On 3rd July, I went to our office, it is located in building, large and luxurious. I tried to find my boss, Mrs Yang, but the admin told me that she was not in Qingdao, her work base was in Jinan. Ok, I was a little confused at that time. Really? My boss was not Qingdao and what should I do? Then Mrs Yang called us that she would communicate with us through phone telephone meeting.
So the first week we had several meetings through phone meeting with our team and learn the knowledge about our products. And we finally figured out that there was only colleague of our team in Qingdao office and he just joined in GE last month. Other colleague are working in Jinan. And there were 4 interns in our team, Mrs Yang let 2 interns work in Jinan and let me and Lily work in Qingdao. The fact is It was difficult for us to figure out what they are talking through phone meeting sometimes as we could not see what was going on or what they are writing. What we could do is listening.
Then on the second Monday, a manager Mr Tao, I’d like to call him big boss Tao, who is in charge of the operation team. He asked us who is our manager and why we are working alone in the office? I told him the reasons. Then he continued to ask us:” Did you talk with your manager about your objectives in those two months?”
“Objectives, en No”
“Do you need to do report after the two months”
“Yes, they said we have to do a report after the two months”
“So, what if your manager is not satisfied with your work in the work? What if what you have done is not what she wants”
“Yeah, this is really a serious question”
Big boss Tao said that:” Be proactive is very important in GE, because GE is so big and everyone is busy doing their work. You should talk with your boss about your objectives before you start to work.
what he said really makes sense. So I called our manager and told her that we had difficult working in Qingdao through phone meeting. Then she realized that leave us alone in Qingdao office is not a good idea. And she talked with another manager is in charge of the interns. And then she told us that we could move to Jinan to work with the team and told us what we should we in the next two months. So after two weeks in Qingdao office, I and another intern moved back to Jinan office. So we finally knew what our manager looks like, and we can do more and learn more with our team.
Before Big Boss Tao told me about that being proactive. I don’t like, more exactly, I am afraid of take the initiative to talk with my manager. I just do what my manager want me to do and do the things well. That is enough. But now I know that I should be more proactive to talk to my manager what should I do and what kind of results should I achieve. I should be more proactive to ask questions and learn from our colleague. I should be more proactive to tell what kind of questions I meet and ask for help.
Be proactive is also important in Toastmaster.
If you want to be a competent speaker, you can make a speech plan for yourself, book roles in our Wechat group in advance. when you are going to deliver a speech or take a role, talk to your mentor and ask for advice and feedback. In the table topic session, when the TTM asks who want to have a try, raise your hand and seize every opportunity to speak on the stage. Take part in the club speech contest to improve your speaking skills because one contest equals to 100 regular meetings.
If you want to improve your leadership skills, try to be an officer or officer assistant. You would have many opportunities to organize activities and deal with problems.
If you don’t do take roles, deliver speech, participate in the speech contest, be an officer, someone else would do it, and they would be competent communicator and competent leader. Be proactive is very important in Toastmaster.
Be proactive is also important in our life. Be proactive so that you can live the life that you dreamed of. You like a girl or boy, but you are not proactive at all. You want to ask her/him out, but you are afraid of that she/he would refuse you. So you just imagine that maybe one day, you two can happily live together. The fact is after few months, she/he would be other’s boyfriend/girlfriend. Be proactive to pursuit, maybe she/he likes you too. Be proactive to live the life you want.
Be proactive is an attitude for us to live a better life.
Be proactive in your work, talk with your boss about your objectives, the difficulties you meet.
Be proactive in Toastmaster, seize the chance to deliver your speech, to become a competent communicator and a competent leader.
Be proactive in your life, do the things you want to do. Live the life you want to live.
