Jane Pascal was the deserving recipient of Edmonton CREW’s scholarship to attend CREW Network’s first Emerging Leaders Retreat in San Antonio, TX earlier this month. Read to learn more about the retreat and Jane’s 3 key takeaways from the sessions.
CREW Emerging Leaders Retreat in San Antonio was an absolute pleasure. It was an immersive, two-and-a-half days of leadership training featuring intensive workshops on crucial conversations, finding your voice, and becoming an emotionally intelligent leader. The retreat was both introspective and focused on connections with the other 90+ CREW members from across North America. I am so grateful to Edmonton CREW for the opportunity to attend. I have numerous takeaways from the retreat but these lessons, focused on high performance, are standouts for me.
- Self-knowledge is invaluable. Understanding your own values is intrinsic to discovering your strengths and leaning into those qualities which make you unique. Spend time with yourself; it will develop your internal and external self-awareness to a greater extent.
- Remain a student of life. Functioning in a default state of unconscious competence (when you are on autopilot and don’t need to think about your intention) can be comfortable, but the state of conscious competence (intentionally thinking about your decisions and actions) is where your growth accelerates. Cheesy, but WIP until RIP (Work in Progress until Rest in Peace). Thanks to CREW Network CEO, Wendy Mann, for that mantra!
- Solicit feedback. Give your chosen solicitors some warning so they can thoughtfully provide you with honest feedback. Ask for observations from the obvious sources, including people in your inner circle, and colleagues, but also from the less obvious groups – people you don’t ‘gel’ with. It’s possible you won’t ‘like’ all feedback received but assume at least 10% is true and incorporate accordingly. This gives you insight into your blind spots.
Ultimately, greater self-awareness leads to greater awareness of others, which fosters deeper relationships, and in CRE, that is a formula for success. Thank you again to Edmonton CREW! I’m already looking forward to the next opportunity to attend a CREW retreat.
Jane Pascal
Vice President, Investments, Institutional Property Advisors
Director, Education, Edmonton CREW