Latest News

 Lutfi SDC has enjoyed being  Lutfi SDC is proud to present a

present at the Khartoum Special Offer for employers to
International Book Fair with other advertise and post jobs in our website
intellectual and educational entities for FREE!
and creating an opportunity to  And last but not least, the Employee
connect with exhibitors. of the Month Award goes to…….
Nada Eid.
 Lutfi SDC has successfully
organized and presented in-house
programmes at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs for the Sudanese
Diplomats Women Association on
the following topics:
 Memory Enhancement.
 Mind Mapping.

 Lutfi SDC will be organizing a

Time Management Programme
facilitated by Franklin Covey
Institute.

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 Leadership corner
Confidence and Charisma – Part 1
Have you ever noticed that when
some successful business leaders
or executives walk into a room,
everyone stops, instantly notices
them and looks at them with
admiration? Or when they speak,
they captivate everyone around
them? What is their secret? What
do they have that most people
don't?
It's just their Charisma,
confidence and attractiveness are
not based on genetics, IQ, social
position or luck. They are skills.
Understanding Charisma
Of all leadership attributes,
charisma is perhaps the least
understood. At first glance,
charisma appears to be an
invisible energy or magnetism.
There's no denying its present,
but it's hard to put a finger on its
source. Some mistakenly believe
charisma is a birth trait—
embedded in certain
personalities, but completely
absent in others.
We believe charisma is both
explainable and learnable. We
also believe charisma helps to
boost a leader's influence.
Charisma
Charisma is a behavioral quality
that anyone can develop. Think of
it as force of character or personal
presence or gravitas. Charismatic
power is not commonly taught,
but it can be. People with higher
levels of charisma tend to be
noticed, listened to, respected and
followed.
A strong charismatic personal
presence is useful for leading,
coaching, teaching, selling,
speaking and relationships of all
sorts. Having a charismatic force In the modern age 'ordinary'
of character is also useful for people are increasingly
defending yourself and others, for realizing that they can achieve
negotiating, complaining, and virtually anything they want.
seeking redress - especially when
Becoming charismatic - like
directed to a higher authority or
someone who thinks they're better becoming anything else you
want to be - is no longer a gift
than you.
from the god or because of
The notion that charisma is 'God- posh education. If you want to
given' owes much to the self- be charismatic, you can just
protecting ideas of the historical believe that:
ruling classes. Rulers, leaders and
institutions throughout the ages  Charisma must come from
tended to maintain power by within you as an individual -
convincing everyone-including individuality is vital.
themselves- that ordinary people  Everyone can be
had neither the right nor the charismatic.
ability of greatness. To varying  Acting and toastmaster
degrees, people in authority and classes help.
certain institutions and  Be honest and bold, but
corporations can still be seen don't offend people.
behaving in this exclusive
arrogant way.
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 Leadership corner
What’s so useful about
charisma?
Charisma is not an always-on
aura that only special people
possess. Charisma is a force of
human personality which can be
understood, measured and
developed. It is closely related to
assertiveness, which we all need,
if only for defensive reasons.
Charisma is not just about
showing off. It enables us to
influence and inspire others and
also to influence our external
environment.
If you want to build a business,
lead a team, be a teacher or a
trainer or a speaker or maybe
enter politics, then you have more
reasons for developing your
charismatic powers.
Conceptual Overview
With its origin in the Greek
language, charisma is regarded as
a unique gift granted to a few
special individuals. One of the
first approaches to the
examination of charisma in the
social sciences was offered by
Max Weber in 1947.
"How can you have charisma? Be
more concerned about making
others feel good about themselves
than you are making them feel good
about you."
— Dan Reiland
Origins and definitions of
charisma
The modern definition of
charisma: "Compelling
attractiveness or charm that can
inspire devotion in others."
The concept of charisma
translates across all cultures. For
example, an interesting alternative
word for charisma is mojo, used
by Black American Creole
(hybrid language), evolving from
West African people.
Charisma - elements
Many and various models of
charisma exist, which testify to
the growing acceptance that
charisma is not 'God-given' or
inborn; instead it is a behavioral
quality that anyone can develop.
Here for instance is a summary of
the main points of the CHARISMA
DEVELOPMENT MODEL:
1. Relax and meditate.
2. Look confident (by feeling
confident, having positive
confident body language, and
behaving as an equal to others).
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3. Get in touch with your
emotions (and with other peoples’
too).
4. Be genuine.
5. Match your body language to
your speech (lookout for this
topic in our coming issues).
6. Think before you speak (less is
more - silence is fine when you
have nothing to say).
7. Speak with conviction
(including the way you say
things, facial expressions and
body language).
8. Treat people as they want to be
treated (notably listen actively
and make other people feel
special).
Nikki Owen, who has studied
charisma for many years, defines
charisma by way of five significant
personal attributes, summarized
below.
1. High Self-Esteem - in other
words self-confidence, inner-calm,
self-reliance, independence.
2. A Driving Force - purpose,
personal values, principles.
3. Sensory Awareness - i.e.
empathy, emotional intelligence
(EQ)
4. A Vision - visualization, belief,
mental picture, positive attitude
towards aim.
5. High Energy - passion,
enthusiasm, commitment,
determination.
…To be continued
 HR CoRneR:
Thinking strategically –Part 2
Further to our October newsletter,
this month we continue to address
and emphasize on some of the
techniques and tools in which can
help us to “Think Strategically”.
Assess and develop people
capability
The next step is to assess the
capacity of HR and help managers
to support individuals through set
of tools such as skills audit,
performance management
information and to develop a
process in which you can identify
and deploy talent across the
organization. This can be done by
assessing strengths and weaknesses
in relation to what needs to be
done. The weaknesses may show
gaps in HR activities that will
inhibit the ability to meet strategic
goals.
Define specific HR strategy
You now need to put together the
strategic framework by statements
of the business needs, addressing
varieties of HR activities such as
Recruitment, talent management
and learning and development.
You must explain how they will
meet the needs, the resources
required, the program for
implementation (this will involve
prioritization) and their benefits in
terms of added value and output.
Align system with strategy
Determine where the organization
really want to be and identify how
HR help these needs to be met
and ensure that policies, processes
and system are all aligned for
better contribution. We have
possibly seen some organisations
that embedded some values such
as commitment, high performer
organization or loyalty, but how
are these nice slogans are
compared to reality? Such values
can be easily seen useless and
contradictory hence, it’s
important to allocate, align the
resources needed in order to
practice what we preach.
Added value
Added value can be shown by
sharing and publicizing any
success HR has contributed to the
organization.
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This can be done through
applying measure before and after
each project/assignment to show
what changes have been made.
Many of us are not getting the
support required by management
and board level because we are
not able to show the difference
that we apply strategically and the
added value.
Conclusion
There is no universal prescription
for an HR strategy. Its purpose
should be to provide a framework
for applying people management
practices to achieve business
outcomes. Therefore each strategy
will be unique in itself and
dependent on number of factors
such as, business environment,
business goals.
HR strategy should be concerned
both with the delivery of effective
people management services and
innovating new policies and
practices. It is therefore also about
making decisions about what
needs to change, managing those
changes and establishing what
needs to stay the same.
Reference
People management magazine
March 2007-(page 44)
www.peoplemanagment.co.uk
 Self development corner
learning from your mistakes- Part 2
This month we continue, what we
started in October’s issue,
Learning from our mistakes
Where is the problem?
Whenever we make a mistake, we
often become upset. And being
upset is our maker’s way of telling
us that “we need to learn
something.” If we lie, blame,
justify or deny the upset, we will
waste the precious gem of wisdom
that is in every mistake.
When you make a mistake one of
the first things you should do is to
define the problem or mistake
clearly. Then, ask yourself what
happened? Or what is the problem
that needs to be solved? Then write
it down. When you write the
problem down on paper, you’ll be
able see it more clearly. You’ll then
be able to understand it better and it
will be easier for you to find a
solution.
Then you should define all the
possible causes of the mistake or
problem. Ask yourself; How did
this happen? Why did it happen?
What were the critical variables
that caused the problem or
mistake?
After you have defined the problem
clearly in writing and all the
possible causes, then you need to
identify all the possible solutions,
or ways of dealing with it.
Ask yourself what are all the  What would we do differently
different things that I could do to if in this exact situation
again?
minimize the cost of the mistake,  How can we avoid getting
or to solve the problem that has into situations like this?
arisen? The more ideas you have, (What was the kind of
the more likely it is that you will situation we wanted to be in?)
come up with an idea or  Was this simply unavoidable
combination of ideas, which will given all of the
circumstances? A failure isn’t
solve the problem or correct the
a mistake if you were
mistake. attempting the impossible.
 Has enough time passed for
us to know if this is a mistake
or not?
“Never interrupt your enemy when
Here some questions to ask to
help your investigation: he is making a mistake “
Napoleon Bonaparte
 What was the probable (1769 - 1821)
sequence of events?
 Were their multiple small
mistakes that led to a larger
one?
 Were there any invalid or
wrong assumptions made?
 Did we have the right goals?
Were we trying to solve the
right problem?
 Was it possible to have
recognized bad assumptions
earlier?
 Was there information we
know now that would have
been useful then?
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 Self development corner
Humor and Courage
No amount of analysis can replace
your confidence in yourself. When
you’ve made a mistake, especially a
visible one that impacts other
people, it’s natural to question your
ability to perform next time.
One way to know you’ve reached a
healthy place is your sense of
humor. It might take a few days, but
eventually you’ll see some comedy
in what happened.
When friends tell stories of their
mistakes it makes you laugh, right?
Well when you can laugh at your
own mistakes you know you’ve
accepted it and no longer judge
yourself on the basis of one single
event. Reaching this kind of
perspective is very important in
avoiding future mistakes.
So the most important lesson in all
of mistake making is to trust that
while mistakes are inevitable, if you
can learn from the current one,
you’ll also be able to learn from
future ones.
No matter what happens tomorrow
you’ll be able to get value from it
and apply it to the day after that.
Progress won’t be a straight line but
if you keep learning you will have
more successes than failures and the
mistakes you make along the way
will help you get to where you want
to go.
Sometimes we have to laugh at our
own mistakes to get over the
embarrassment and keep going.
Here are two steps to help us learn
from our mistakes.
Step 1
Learn not to make a mistake
more than once. It is very
important to learn from your
mistakes and not make them over
and over. If you keep making the
same mistakes it shows that you
don't care and haven't learned to
The learning from mistakes
do the job right. Bosses want
checklist
someone who can learn from their
mistakes and improve their
 Accepting responsibility
performance. When you learn
makes learning possible.
from your mistakes you can help
 Don’t equate making
others who are having the same
mistakes with being a
problem that you once had and
mistake.
that makes you a better and more
 You can’t change mistakes,
valuable employee.
but you can choose how to
respond to them.
Step 2
 Growth starts when you can
see room for improvement.
When we make a mistake that
hurts others we need to do  Work to understand why it
happened and what the
everything possible to correct this
and apologize. No one is perfect factors were.
 What information could have
and most people will truly forgive
you if you are truly sorry and avoided the mistake?
 What small mistakes, in
admit your mistake.
Remember a mistake is not really sequence, contributed to the
bigger mistake?
a mistake if we learn from it, it is
a learning experience.  Are there alternatives you
should have considered but
did not?
 What kinds of changes are
required to avoid making this
mistake again? What kinds of
change are difficult for you?
 How do you think your
behavior should/would
change if you were in a
similar situation again?
 Work to understand the
mistake until you can make
fun of it (or not want to kill
others that make fun of it).
 Don’t over-compensate: the
next situation won’t be the
Page 6 of 8 same as the last.
 TasTer Corner
Mind Mapping and Creativity
Mind maps® originated in the late
1960s by Tony Buzan (British
popular psychology author)
inspired by note-taking methods of
the great thinkers of history such as
Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo Galilei,
Richard Feynman (a noble prize
winning physicist) and Albert
Einstein, who all used a similar
method for centuries in learning,
brainstorming, memory, visual
thinking and problem solving.
So what is a Mind Map? A Mind
Map® is a powerful graphic
technique which provides a
universal key to unlock the
potential of your brain. It harnesses
the full range of cortical* skills -
word, image, number, logic,
rhythm, colour and spatial
awareness- in a single, uniquely
powerful manner making it an
effective method of note-taking and
generation of ideas by association.
In so doing, it gives you the
freedom to roam the infinite
expanses of your brain.
(*Having to do with the cortex, the
outer portion of an organ)
The Mind Map® can be
applied to every aspect of life
where improved learning and
clearer thinking will enhance
human performance. It is used
by millions of people around the
world - from the very young to
the very old - whenever they
wish to use their minds more
effectively
They generally take a
hierarchical or tree branch
format, with ideas branching
into their subsections. Mind
maps allow for greater creativity
when recording ideas and
information, as well as allowing
the note-taker to associate words
with visual representations.
Mind maps and concept maps
are different in that mind maps
focus on only one word or idea,
whereas Concept maps connect
multiple words or ideas.
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What do you need to make
a Mind Map®?
They are so easy to do and
so natural, the ingredients
for your "Mind Map Recipe"
are very few:
 Blank unlined paper
 Coloured pens and pencils
 Your Brain
 Your imagination!
That’s it!
When you use Mind
Maps® on a daily basis, you
will find that your life
becomes more productive,
fulfilled, and successful on
every level. There are no
limits to the number of
thoughts, ideas and
connections that your brain
can make, which means that
there are no limits to the
different ways you can use
Mind Maps® to help you.
 TasTer Corner
7 Steps to Making a Mind Map®
1.Start in the CENTRE of a blank
page turned sideways. Why?
Because starting in the centre gives
your brain freedom to spread out in
all directions and to express it’s self
more freely and naturally.
2.Use an IMAGE or PICTURE as your
central idea. Why?
Because an image is worth a
thousand words and helps you use
your imagination. A central image is
more interesting, keeps you
focussed, helps you concentrate, and
gives your Brain more of a buzz!
3.Use COLOURS throughout. Why?
Because colours are as exciting to
your brain as are images. Colour
adds extra vibrancy and life to your
Mind Map®, adds tremendous
energy to your Creative Thinking
and is fun!
4.CONNECT your MAIN BRANCHES to
the central image and connect your
second- and third-level branches to
the first and second levels, etc.
Why? Because your Brain works by
association. It likes to link two (or
three or four) things together. If you
connect the branches, you will
understand and remember a lot more
easily.
5. Make your branches
CURVED rather than
"The problems that exist in
straight-lined. Why?
the world today cannot be
Because having nothing but
solved by the level of
straight lines is boring to
thinking that created them."
your brain.
Albert Einstein
6. Use ONE KEY WORD PER
LINE. Why?
Because single key words
give your Mind Map more
power and flexibility.
7. Use IMAGES throughout.
Why? Because each image,
like the central image, is
also worth a thousand
words. So if you have only
10 images in your Mind
Map®, it's already the equal
of 10,000 words of notes!
All this and more is coming right to you. Contact us and
check our website, www.lutfisdc.net, for the next course
on Mind Mapping and Creativity
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