Administrative Assistant's Update

JUNE 2016 2 E D I TO R ' S N OT E George Pearson A professional and part of the family, an AA retires We always relish the opportunity to pass along to you tributes to admins, whose skills and characteristics, as you know, are as deep and wide as one can possibly imagine – and whose talents and human dimensions never cease to impress. Not long ago, while traveling in the U.S., I listened to Fresh Air on National Public Radio. It's an inter- view show, one of the most popular programs on the U.S. public network. Host Terry Gross, in wrapping up that show, told listeners, "We want to thank our administrative assistant, Dorothy Ferebee, who has retired. Part of her job was to respond to calls and emails from listeners, so it's possible you communicated with her. "She's been with us since 1990 so saying goodbye isn't easy. We remem- ber when she used to bring her little son to work; we watched him grow up. "Now both of Dorothy's children have children of their own, and they all feel like part of the Fresh Air family. "Dorothy has a big heart and a gen- erous spirit and a fondness for other people's idiosyncrasies; she also has an admirable distrust of everything phony and pretentious. "Dorothy and our director, Roberta Shorrock, shared a cubicle for 26 years. "Roberta will especially miss her and the way Dorothy would let us know about ridiculous things on tv and Internet. "It wasn't part of Dorothy's job description to generate story ideas," Gross related, "but over the years she generated some great ones. "She didn't write on-air copy, but she wrote the 2003 book How to Create Your Own African American Library." Some years before, Gross in - terviewed Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. During the inter- view, he sang a version of the Chiquita Banana jingle. After the interview, Dorothy Ferebee said she remembered a different version. Asked by Gross to sing it, she did. Gross taped Ferebee's version and played it on air after the Koeppel inter- view. She pulled it out of the archives and played it to cap her reminiscences of Ferebee's time at Fresh Air. "Dorothy's probably going to hate us for playing that," Gross said. "I hope that won't stop her from com- ing back and visiting – and I hope she comes back soon." A bit of silliness but it says every- thing about the fondness and respect with which Dorothy Ferebee will be remembered by her colleagues – her teammates, really – and is a reminder of the impact an administrative profes- sional can have on a team. Tell yourself you can succeed What a relief when we finally know everything we need to know and have developed the skills we need to succeed in our chosen pursuit. We can finally focus our energy on the job at hand – and the rest will take care of itself. Right? "Big mistake," says Travis Bradberry, co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, in a recent LinkedIn post, and he points to research led by Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, to illustrate. In the study, two groups of people who were struggling with performance received contrast- ing interventions. One group was taught to perform better on a task they had done poorly on. The other group was told they weren't really stuck and if they believed in themselves they could make it happen – improving their perfor- mance was a choice. The groups' performance was evaluated several months later. The group taught to perform the task better did worse. The group taught that they had "the power to change their brains and improve their performance them- selves improved dramatically," says Bradberry. "The act of learning is every bit as important as what you learn. Believing that you can improve yourself and do things in the future that are beyond your current pos- sibilities is exciting and fulfilling." Administrative Assistant's Update is published once a month by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Director, Carswell Media: Karen Lorimer Publisher: Todd Humber Editor: George Pearson george@adminupdate.ca Associate Editor: Jennifer Lewington jennifer@adminupdate.ca EDITORIAL OFFICE (519) 271-6000 Administrative Assistant's Update Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. 1 Corporate Plaza, 2075 Kennedy Road Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 CUSTOMER SERVICE (416) 609-3800 (800) 387-5164 FAX (416) 298-5082 (877) 750-9041 carswell.customerrelations@ thomsonreuters.com Contents copyright. All rights reserved. © 2016 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. Contents may not be reproduced without written permission. Brief extracts may be made with due acknowledgement. Annual subscription: $189. Publications Mail Registration No. 40065782 GST# 897176350 UPDATE Administrative Assistant's

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