Jun 2019 -I have attended Emerging Leader Program run by Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). It is a highly recommended short program aimed to enhance leadership and networking experience for young food professionals. We are divided in group of eight (8) individual for 2.5 days long of programs and early mornings/late night that absolutely worth it. I always wanted to make a difference in what I do and often, I sell myself short and despite having sufficient skills and experience, I am not able to showcase my leadership experiences. Thus, I thought this would be a great way to showcase my experiences while meeting others in the industry.
Although the program go through the basic leadership skills that I have learned at school, I found that I am not using these skills. It is indeed a great reminder for me to incorporate these leadership skills in my day-to-day life. In addition, I am introduced to few new concept of embracing shame and vulnerability. Often, we hide things that we feel ashamed of. What that meant is that we are also hiding a part of ourselves and that hinders our growth. By openly sharing something small that we feel vulnerable at, we open up our life and inviting others to be a part of our life. The small group discussion that we have facilitate these discussion. I will be truthful -I felt that I opened myself and my brain played tricks on me that I am judge by how I live without fully embracing my situation. It is probably just my imagination. It is the exact uneasiness that made me reevaluate my situation of whether or not, I have the right strategies for my situation. Sometimes, the best thing in life is having that continuous challenge and opportunities to grow. ELN helped me made that choice to continue to grow, continue to seek opportunities to grow others and make a bigger difference, while evaluating the growth potential of my team. The program encouraged me to speak to important key members about the opportunities to grow the team and setting goals. Of course, this also come with a stake of driving effort without authorization. It is not the most comfortable things to do especially when I stand on my own feet. Getting the team to agree on barely a single term on having data to support evidences was a challenge despite it should have been an established terms in the food industry. Yet, I stand on my own feet for 6 months until data is generally accepted by the team, as supportive evidence. At the same time, I am also evaluating the impact I can make by staying in an organization versus working for multiple organizations that I can make bigger impact to protect food safety and public health. I have chosen to make a bigger impact and to learn more about the food industry. Now, I run my own food consultancy start-up, hoping to help build and support more food organizations, to create safe and quality food branding. In doing so, I combined food safety, marketing and management under a roof, called SFPM Consulting. If you have not explore ELN program and you are working with food, I encourage you to check this link and apply for the next program intake.
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AuthorFelicia Loo, CFS is a Certified Food Scientist and qualified SQF Practitioner. She has worked with numerous food businesses to develop customized and improved food safety programs. She has worked with different food safety and regulatory schemes such as SQF, ISO 22000, Primus GFS, Organic, Kosher and Health Canada (Natural Health Product). Categories
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