Latest News

by Salma Seedat

Finding meaning in the work you do and being part of a collective effort that spans the globe is an incredible motivator. After a rather haphazard arrival into the international development sector, once I became part of finding the solutions to some of the most pressing problems in the world, I was hooked and there was no turning back. This past month, I’ve taken some time to pause and reflect on the biggest learnings of my career as a woman in the field of international development: 

1.  Success is a team sport and leaders are the coaches not the star player:

I grew up in a home that included my extended family; from a very young age I learned to operate as part of a community where we took care of each other. Nurturing is often perceived to be an extremely feminine trait and one that is not necessarily associated with the business world. However, figuring out how to take care of people to ensure that they are thriving has taught me that when you care deeply for people and they feel nurtured, they achieve great things. This makes your organisation successful.

It means letting go of the urge to control and truly empowering people to take responsibility for what they do. I’ve found that most leaders struggle with this, with that struggle being rooted in a lifelong fear of failure. From the time we enter the schooling system, we are punished for getting things wrong and that fear of not knowing or failing follows us throughout our lives. When you are responsible for the overall success of an organisation, that often translates to the urge to control all the aspects of the business, which extends to the people that surround you, and this births a deep level of mistrust for everyone. All the greatest leaders I’ve worked with have guided rather than dictated, encouraged rather than demanded and empowered rather than controlled. They were phenomenal at nurturing the people in their organisation and helping them to feel safe enough to make mistakes and learn from them. This was a key component to the secrets of their success and one that I’ve learnt to embrace in my own career.  

2.  Behind the scenes is where the real action happens:

From my engagement with global organisations that work with government representatives on global development agendas, I have learnt that while politics and diplomacy often have a negative connotation, they are essential to build trust and consensus. In the world of development, these are essential skills for making a difference in addressing global challenges. Being able to guide leaders towards finding commonality in diverse agendas and moving people towards consensus is essential for facilitating action on challenges like poverty alleviation, climate change and universal healthcare. It helped me understand that there is a time to take a seat at the table and be a strong contributing voice, but that most of the groundwork is done behind the scenes to get things moving in the right direction. I learnt how to have and facilitate open, honest, authentic conversations and how to be comfortable with being vulnerable. These are more traits that are not often associated with the business world, but they help to build trust. Gaining and maintaining trust is vital as the foundation from which collaboration and consensus can be reached. And I learnt that very little of this happens in the limelight! 

3. Collective wisdom is true wealth: 

And lastly, I learnt to appreciate that all communities have diverse dynamics because they are made up of individuals who are unique in their life experiences, skills, and knowledge. Leaders do not have all the answers to what will make their organisation successful, nor should they be expected to, but they can harness the collective wisdom and creativity of the people in their organisation. This means creating a culture where the sustainability of the company is a collective responsibility and people feel comfortable with contributing ideas and insights no matter what their role is in the organisation. When people know that their recommendations and ideas will be respected and considered, they are more likely to give suggestions that bring a richness to the quality of the organisation’s products and services which is often the ‘secret sauce’ for organisational success. I have learnt to value the input of others, to critically analyse what is being shared and to seek the voices that bring different perspectives. Often that’s where the gold lies. 

The underpinning truth for me has been that people really and truly matter, and their success leads to your success. We are an interconnected community who need to take care of each other and work together to create those inclusive spaces that fulfil us all. 

The pandemic has been a catalyst to surfacing health inequities that exist in communities throughout the United States. These disparities disproportionately impact historically disenfranchised and marginalized communities and the burden of bridging these gaps often fall on State and Federal programs. Despite spending as much as 67% of the national budget on social programs, Americans continue to have the worst health outcomes within developed nations*. Ironic as it may appear, the lack of relevant data illustrating healthcare needs is not the problem. On the contrary, the poor cost to value ratio can be attributed to lack of cohesive data strategies to drive efficiencies across enterprise care management.   

For years, the healthcare industry has discussed the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) and its effect on the aforementioned communities. Some organizations are further along in trying to tackle social risk through intervention programs while others haven’t started and/or don’t have the resources to make a concerted effort. What’s important to recognize is there are solutions out there to guide the whole journey towards better health outcomes and maximum impact. 

Socially Determined is the first organization of its kind to provide Social Risk Intelligence™ that enables healthcare entities to fully understand the impact SDOH has on their communities. Our novel technology allows organizations to identify high concentrations of social risk exposure, quantify opportunities that have the biggest impact, prioritize what actions to take for sustainable, social-care intervention programs and measure the results of said programs. 

Vantage Health Technologies delivers technology and innovation to drive human action. Through its AI-enabled platform, it takes disparate clinical and non-clinical data and presents users with personalized, highly relevant, and timely insights in addition to recommended next best actions to drive optimal health outcomes. Our solutions coordinate and orchestrate systemwide guided action to improve both the effective and efficient use of resources and boost health outcomes – consistently and at scale. 

Given the complementary strengths of our companies and a shared vision for the future of U.S. healthcare, we are committed to finding ways that will uplift vulnerable Americans who are beneficiaries of State and Federal social programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Indian Health Services (IHS). We can help health plans, payers and government agencies looking for new ways to leverage analytic insights and turn it into targeted action that drives results. 

If you are interested in learning more about our collective approach to helping organizations like yours understand the impact of social risk and find effective ways to address it, Socially Determined and Vantage Health Technologies will be at the MESC conference in Boston August 9-12. Click here to set up an appointment to connect.  

You can also visit our websites at: https://www.sociallydetermined.com and www.vantagehealth.tech  

*www.commonwealthfund.org

5 tips to becoming an Excel Master

Bard Cloete is a Financial Business Analyst for the BroadReach Group, based in our HQ offices in Cape Town. He is a 2020 Founders Awards finalist, recognized under the category We are enterprising for his innovative, resourceful, and agile approach to financial reporting. We’re in good hands on this topic then, read what he has to say below.

Personally speaking, Excel falls within the category of things that I wish I was taught in school but wasn’t. Just like doing my taxes or spotting online scams, working in Excel is a skill that I never needed in my youth, until the day when it went from having zero importance to having serious life consequences if not handled correctly.

My university taught us some basics, but it was only when I started to apply it in everyday work that things start to sink in. When I started working, I quickly saw that having solid Excel skills would save me hours in my day and help avoid boring, repetitive tasks. It became a trade-off between education time and working time – every hour invested in learning led to hours saved through efficiency.

In the spirit of #wearelearners I wanted to share what I have learned to get things done quickly. Some of the tips you might find surprising and some you may already know. Should you apply these, there is no doubt you will be on the path to Excel mastery!

Tip #1 Shortcuts are key

Shortcuts are by far the greatest timesavers. Basic tasks such as selecting data, copy/pasting, and typing out formulas make up most tasks performed in Excel – so shaving off a few seconds every time you do them adds up in the long run!

At the beginning of my career, I was stunned when I saw our local office Excel Guru navigating around Excel without using a mouse. He only used the arrow keys, Shift and Ctrl. Check out this video to see what I’m talking about!

Knowing the basic shortcuts for your most common tasks such as copy (Ctrl + C) and paste (Ctrl + V) are essential. For more, check out this link.

Finally, did you know that every command in Excel can be accessed through a keyboard shortcut? By pressing Alt once, you will see letters appear on the taskbar on each of the menu items on the top of the screen.

Pressing Alt reveals the magic letters. Pressing Alt again makes them go away

Go ahead, give it a try! Don’t worry if you mess something up, you can always Ctrl + Z to revert .

To engrain these shortcuts in your way of working, I recommend that you write out the shortcut for your 3 most used functions and keep this next to your desk. Remind yourself that every time you use these functions, you use the shortcuts on your list. In no time, this will become your new way of working, bringing you one incremental step closer to Excel Enlightenment.

Tip #2: Own your interface

You can customize your own Quick Access Toolbar to add bespoke functions that you use most. These will always be visible on the top bar and can be accessed by pressing Alt + the position of the icon, counting from the left. For example, if I want to use Quick Filter in the example below (the funnel looking thingy), I will press Alt + 6.

Customize the toolbar by clicking the drop-down and clicking “More Commands”

Tip #3: Understand absolute referencing (& experiment!)

Referencing is a fundamental part of working in Excel, like knowing left from right. We all mix it up sometimes (or is that just me?) – the important thing is knowing what it’s about.

If you’re they type of person who begins to sweat when they see the “$” symbol in a formula, don’t despair (I have been there). I’d recommend this video which explains it quite well.

In short, Excel references can be either relative, or absolute. Relative references move as the formula gets copied. Absolute references don’t. Hitting “F4” is how you toggle a selected reference between the states. Watch the video. It will all make sense.

Tip #4: Understand the core functions

There is a famous saying “if you give a man a hammer, every problem becomes a nail”. Excel is exactly like a toolbox and knowing the core functions is the equivalent of filling your toolbox with tools that are the best at performing specific tasks. With physical tools, the association is common knowledge. Nail? Hammer. Screw? Screwdriver. Use cases in Excel are very similar.

If you have a large data set that you need to summarise? Use a Pivot Table

If you want to view-only a subset of a larger data set? Try Filters

Do you need to add a column of data to your data set from another table? Use Xlookup (or Vlookup if you are running an older version of Excel)

Some other core functions I would recommend getting the hang of are:

• Basic (very essential):
  • SUM
  • IF (with AND/OR)
  • COUNT/COUNTA
  • AVERAGE
• Advanced:
  • SUMIF/SUMIFS
  • COUNTIF/COUNTIFS
  • SUMPRODUCT

There are tons of good, free instructors on YouTube. Find a teaching style that works for you and spend some time with them :).

Tip #5: Be patient

Most of us have heard the saying “you have to spend money to make money”. With Excel, it’s the same, but instead of money, it’s time. To see a real improvement in your productivity, you have to be okay with investing the time upfront. Changing old habits or learning new ones can be frustrating and initially things may take longer – be patient with yourself and trust the process.

Stick to a manageable pace of learning that you can maintain and implement regularly. After a year of keeping at it, you will have completely transformed your relationship with Excel. And, importantly, reward yourself by celebrating your accumulated time savings with some well-earned you-time.

I’ll leave you with this: Excel is designed to make our lives as working professionals easier: automating boring tasks to free up time for the things that are more important in life. I hope this article helps you do just that, getting you closer to mastery of this great toolkit. Happy learning!