EQ author to speak at Women Managers’ Conference
by NATION REPORTER (10/15/2008) Internationally-acclaimed author and public speaker Stephanie Vermeulen will be the keynote speaker during the fourth annual Women Managers’ Conference scheduled for Lilongwe in November and organised by The Women’s Club (TWC).
Author of EQ: Emotional Intelligence for Everybody and Stitched Up: Who Fashions Women’s Lives, Vermeulen will make three presentations at the ‘Unstoppable Manager’ conference. "The main focus of the conference is on addressing how emotional issues impact and often prevent professional behaviour at work," said TWC in a statement. The statement further said that many otherwise nice and intelligent people sabotage their careers through such poor emotional intelligence.
According to TWC chairperson Jeri Gomonda, Vermeulen goes beyond the "fluff" motivational talks and covers hard-hitting practical issues about how people sabotage themselves in business and how to take responsibility for their actions to get ahead. "We are thrilled to have someone of Vermeulen’s calibre at our conference. We all know women are socialised differently than men and even though we have more or less equal opportunity at work, all human beings bring their emotional baggage with them to the office," she said. As a highly sought after South African speaker, Vermeulen has a reputation internationally for being an authentic entertainer while at the same time delivering many meaningful and hard-hitting nuggets. She frequently addresses audiences in the USA, Europe, Middle East, India and throughout the Southern African region.
"Often called Africa’s most controversial voice on women’s issues because of her reputation for ‘pulling no punches,’ she delves into the issue of female self-sacrifice and shows how this translates into the biggest complaint women have today; exhaustion," Gomonda said. Claiming that it’s now a ‘Woman’s World’, Vermeulen views the burden of self-sacrifice as the final female frontier and only by purging this age-old scam can businesswomen take full advantage of the gains women have already made.
The conference will take place at Sunbird Capital Hotel from November 3 to 4 and besides Vermeulen several distinguished and successful women managers are scheduled to be guest speakers. They include Nation Publications Limited chief executive officer Mbumba Achuthan, Sunbird Tourism Limited CEO Connie Msiska, Susan Banda of the Millennium Challenge Account Malawi Country Office and former diplomat, Cabinet minister and CEO of several institutions Eunice Kazembe, currently a presidential advisor. Examples of poor EQ at the office include
familiar scenes such as a supervisor loudly criticising a junior for
‘always’ performing work incorrectly despite not having corrected him after
the first mistake’; sending an
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Vermeulen’s
presentations will examine the root causes and provide insight to overcoming
them. 
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to a supervisor loudly criticising a junior for ‘always’ performing work
incorrectly despite not having corrected him after the first mistake’;
sending an email to everyone decreeing a new rule which everyone knows is in
response to one person’s actions, without ever talking to the person
directly; and, accepting as valid a complaint about a junior from another
co-worker or customer without hearing the junior’s side.
