18/10/2021 – Tokeportal’s own content

In the previous episode of our mini-interview series we presented you Karola Kassai, and now Annamária Tóth answered to our questions. Annamária took a degree in communication and Hungarian, and then she acquired a basic and a master level trainer qualification. She has gathered many experiences in the business life as a coach, and she is the senior trainer of Soter Tréningakadémia and Barra Kommunikációs Intézet currently. She provides soft skill trainings primarily, and she assits in the building of personal and team competencies, for example in the area of conflict management and resilience.

I got into the field of consuelling 5 years ago, and I started to work for a consulting company. Here I have learned the project management of EU tenders, the PR activities and the process of organisation and consultancy, among others. However, it was the connection with people that I felt the closest to myself out of the work processes. Therefore, I attended a two-year, high-level, basic and master trainer training course. My main areas as a trainer are stress-, conflict-, communication- and time management, together with the leadership and resilience trainings. Continuous training is the key to my own development too, so I do as much self-management as I can, and I also train myself. One of my philosophies, “long, life, learning”, is a model of lifelong learning, which I consider very important.

Among the competencies of a startup team, I would highlight time management and the ability to structure. Effective time management helps startups to prioritise their efforts, identify time-consumers and stay focused on the long-term goal. I also regard stress management as a very important skill for startups, that can be learnt and developed. In the case of tasks and objectives, participants often encounter obstacles and solutions that they do not expect or have no control over. Resilience and the right way of stress management can help you find the good balance. Developing emotional intelligence is also an important task, as actually successful projects are rarely lacking in this area.

I think a good verbal and non-verbal communication is essential for startups. Getting the message across in a credible way is one of the keys to success. What do I want and how? The answer is born in the mind, but the question is whether it will reach the other side. How do we negotiate, what metacommunication elements do we use to convince the partners? Do we know the hidden messages and encode them? Do we use assertive communication when events do not happen as we wanted to? Proper communication style and continuous questioning are necessary for a successful project.

In my work, development is one of the main driving forces. After several years as an employee, maintaining my own business and finding the right work-life balance is one of the main key issues. As a parent of three children, I can assist you in resolving the crises of your work and personal life, as well as identifying the goals and priorities, and offering personalised options.

In business, you cannot succeed without flexibility. The goal is to manage conflicts in a flexible way in situations, where our ideals are not on track or things simply go wrong. Over my many years spent in the business world, I have seen that project management creates a vulnerable relationship. The resilience and the management of contingencies were the things, that helped me to make projects successful, completed and to meet the deadlines.

If you want to know more about Annamária, visit her mentor profile.