Hey there,
I cannot believe that 5 weeks of my internship are already over and next week I hit the mid-point. The last few weeks have been phenomenal in every sense of the word. I have met the most interesting people, learned so much about technology, received some of the best advice on career advancement and had so much fun!
My project is shaping up very well and there are so many dimensions that have been added to it, that every morning, I cannot wait to get to work and get started. I joined the Corporate finance world, expecting lots of spreadsheet modeling, financial valuation and analytics. Yes, I am getting to do all of that, but only 50% of the time. The other 50% of my project is purely qualitative- understanding the products (software!!), studying customer behavior and projecting that behavior for future development and socializing different ways of thinking about processes across different groups within the company ( marketing, product management, business managers, sales, strategy and operations).
With so much time spent on meeting people from so many different departments and functions, I am learning to further hone my communication and relationship management skills. At Microsoft, like any other big corporation, people and relationships are the real key to success; and this has been reiterated by all the C-level executives that we have met so far. They have all attributed their success to their relationships with the right people and influencing skills.
Another skill that I feel I use everyday is that of mindful listening; which can be argued is a part of communication skills, but I like to separate it out because what we mostly learn about communication is how we express ourselves, in written, verbally or through body language. We are not taught or trained to "listen". There have been several times during my conversations with business partners when I have been best served by just listening, and not rushing to share my own opinion of the matter to impress my counterpart.
So what I've learned to do is : don't just communicate, LISTEN. And when you speak AFTER carefully listening to the other person, your words will INFLUENCE and IMPRESS them.
Hopefully I continue to develop this skill as I continue in my career.....
So now Shhhh...I'm listening....:)
I cannot believe that 5 weeks of my internship are already over and next week I hit the mid-point. The last few weeks have been phenomenal in every sense of the word. I have met the most interesting people, learned so much about technology, received some of the best advice on career advancement and had so much fun!
My project is shaping up very well and there are so many dimensions that have been added to it, that every morning, I cannot wait to get to work and get started. I joined the Corporate finance world, expecting lots of spreadsheet modeling, financial valuation and analytics. Yes, I am getting to do all of that, but only 50% of the time. The other 50% of my project is purely qualitative- understanding the products (software!!), studying customer behavior and projecting that behavior for future development and socializing different ways of thinking about processes across different groups within the company ( marketing, product management, business managers, sales, strategy and operations).
With so much time spent on meeting people from so many different departments and functions, I am learning to further hone my communication and relationship management skills. At Microsoft, like any other big corporation, people and relationships are the real key to success; and this has been reiterated by all the C-level executives that we have met so far. They have all attributed their success to their relationships with the right people and influencing skills.
Another skill that I feel I use everyday is that of mindful listening; which can be argued is a part of communication skills, but I like to separate it out because what we mostly learn about communication is how we express ourselves, in written, verbally or through body language. We are not taught or trained to "listen". There have been several times during my conversations with business partners when I have been best served by just listening, and not rushing to share my own opinion of the matter to impress my counterpart.
So what I've learned to do is : don't just communicate, LISTEN. And when you speak AFTER carefully listening to the other person, your words will INFLUENCE and IMPRESS them.
Hopefully I continue to develop this skill as I continue in my career.....
So now Shhhh...I'm listening....:)
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