Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

10
Dec

Professionalism

My professionalism this term was good overall, but there are some areas in which I could have done better. Overall, I deserve 41/50 points for professionalism.

I was never late for anything related to this course. I was always on time or early to team meetings, lectures, and meetings with LCB career services. I even showed up when I was sick. For these reasons, I deserve the full ten points for Punctuality.

In class and at meetings, I was always fully attentive and participated in every activity. I was consistently engaged in course related conversations both in class and in team meetings. Each day, I actively worked to improve myself. Therefore, I deserve the full ten points for Participation.

I always treated others with respect and listened attentively in lectures, team meetings, and meetings with LCB career services. For the most part, I was able to stay focused, but I occasionally got distracted or off topic during team meetings. I also gave weak feedback to my teammates in the Midterm Peer Evaluations Report because I failed to read the feedback guidelines. I gave much more valuable feedback in the Final Peer Evaluations Report, but my sup-par feedback earlier in the term cheated my teammates out of the opportunity to learn and grow from my input. Since I was generally respectful, but also considering the mistakes that cost my teammates, I deserve six out of ten for Respect for Others.

I was almost always prepared for class and meetings. I always completed my readings and research on time. However, there were two occasions in which I was not completely prepared for class. One time, I showed up and realized that I had forgotten to print out a document. I had to run up to the computer lab and print it out. I was not late for class, but I should not have waited until the last minute. The second occasion was during the final presentations. I did not bring any Audience Response Forms. Professor Bramhall was generous enough to provide me with some forms, but it was my responsibility to check the course schedule and bring the necessary materials. Since my mistakes were relatively minor and I was prepared a majority of the time, I deserve eight out of ten points for Preparation.

I took advantage of every learning opportunity in class and in my team meetings, but I could have gotten more out my journal, Career Services, and office hours. Sometimes, my journal entries were weak. I could have utilized them more effectively to reflect on my growth and my progress in my Leadership Development Plan. I also did not attend office hours. I had classes during the scheduled times, but I could have made an appointment to meet with Professor Bramhall. On the other hand, I was willing to take risks. Even though I had a traumatic experience speaking in front of an audience, I faced my fear and presented in the first presentation. I also volunteered to take on the Q and A portion of our final presentation with Thomas. There were a couple of questions that I was unable to answer because my nerves made me freeze up, but the fact that I was willing to attempt the most unscripted part of the presentation shows that I was willing to take risks. Despite my willingness to learn and step outside my comfort zone, I only deserve seven out of ten points for Initiative and Motivation due to my shortcomings in my journal.

10
Dec

Final Reflections, Looking Forward

Describe what you intended to accomplish (your goal), report the progress you made and how you measured it, and the impact. In other words, what were you aiming to accomplish, what actions did you take, how successful were you, and what difference did your actions make?

 

My main goal in my Leadership Development Plan was to get better at inspiring a shared vision.  In all of my past experiences working as part of a team, I have struggled with this. I have a hard time connecting daily tasks with the big picture. I am almost always more focused on completing individual objectives than contributing to the big picture. In every group meeting this term, I worked on improving myself in this area. When our group got distracted or got away from trying to solve the problem, I tried to remind everyone what the big picture was. I asked them things like, “What exactly are we trying to accomplish with this?” and “How does this connect to our overall problem?” During week four, we were excited about the solutions we were coming up with but we were getting away from the problem we initially set out to solve. In my blog post from week four, I wrote, “When we get too focused on technology, I try to remind everyone to make sure that we do not lose our sense of direction and forget the problem itself.” Our excitement about solutions was positive, but it was causing us to make the decisions that were more fun, not necessarily the right decisions. I know that I accomplished my goal of improving my ability to inspire a shared vision because other members of my group acknowledged my efforts. In our Final Peer Evaluations Report, one of my teammates said that I “continued to enable others to act by always keeping the big picture in mind. Andy did a great job of zooming out, which allowed us to gain a different perspective when we got stuck or confused.” When we spent too much time and energy focusing on some small detail or on something that was not vital, I played a strong role in pushing us past it. By improving this skill, I contributed to keeping the team focused and efficient.

I also worked on modeling the way, actively listening, and encouraging the heart. In my Leadership Development Plan, I acknowledged a lack of strength in modeling the way, but I did not have a plan to improve it. However, as the term progressed, I learned that I could model the way by putting extra effort into my portion of the project and encouraging others to do the same. When it came time to put our final proposal together, I took on the responsibility of editing it. Because of our vastly different writing styles, this proved to be a monumental task. The effort I put in showed my group that I was dedicated to helping them succeed. One teammate said that he or she “admired what (I) did when editing our draft proposal.” My effort was appreciated, and since my team members knew I was dedicated, they were more willing to work harder.

To improve my active listening skills, I worked on climbing down the ladder of inference. Instead of making assumptions as I listened, I asked my teammates questions that led me to their deeper reasoning and helped me understand what they were trying to say. By climbing down the ladder of inference and encouraging them to do the same, I was able to improve my understanding and shape my perspective of our project.

My ability to encourage the heart also grew throughout the term. In my Leadership Development Plan, I said that “I need to work recognizing people’s hard work and pointing it out to everyone else.” It was hard for me to work on this skill because sometimes I got overwhelmed by the pressure to complete the next task. However, I made an effort to step back and compliment my teammates on the things that they did well. I thanked Emily for taking the time to do some extra research and bring it to our meeting. I complimented Deanna on her sense of humor and her punctuality because she was always the first person to arrive at meetings and the last one to leave. I praised Huang for stepping outside of his comfort zone and volunteering to speak in the first presentation, which was especially impressive because English is not his first language. I also acknowledged Thomas’s quick thinking and strong speaking skills in the final presentation. By growing in this area, I was able to show my teammates that I appreciated their contributions. It improved my relationships with them and made it a more enjoyable experience.

 

What aspects of the process you designed for yourself worked, and what did not? Be concrete. Use detailed examples and stories.

 

My main goal of inspiring a shared value was simple and clear. I did not give myself specific objectives to complete along the way, and I think this helped me succeed. I know that I often get too task oriented and I forget to keep my main goals in sight. Focusing on the big picture in my leadership development plan went hand in hand with inspiring a shared value in the big picture of our project. Since I was trying to get better at keeping the group focused on solving the main problem instead of getting caught up in little tasks, it made sense to do the same thing with my leadership development plan. By the end, my role on our team was clear. I was responsible for keeping our values in mind. When we talked about our ideas, I spoke up when ideas were not in line with our values. I reminded my teammates that our purpose was to improve student awareness of current events in the LCB, not to build a news center. Although our project was ultimately based on the solution and not solving the problem, I helped to keep them as closely connected as possible. By getting away from specific objectives and just thinking about inspiring a shared vision, I was able to make huge gains.

In modeling the way, I did write any objectives in my Leadership Development Plan that would help me improve that skill. Instead, I had to actively think about how I would go about working on it. This did not work well. Now that I can reflect on my growth in this area, I see where I have improved, but I could have improved more if I had created specific goals. I had the same problem with encouraging the heart. I would have grown much more if I had made it a goal to give a compliment to each team member in every meeting.

 

What do you still need to work on and how will you do that beyond this course

 

I still need to work on my presentation skills. I get uncomfortable when I am up in front of a group and it causes me to present poorly. This has not always been a problem for me. A few years ago, I was a confident and effective presenter. Unfortunately, I had a bad experience in high school giving a speech to over 8,000 people that was traumatizing enough that I have completely blocked it from memory. Since then, I have been uncomfortable speaking in front of an audience. I need to confront my fears. I can do that in small ways by participating more in class and volunteering to present when I am involved in a team project.

I also need to be more confident in sharing my own ideas. During the verbal feedback session with my group, my teammates told me that I often presented a good idea and then shot it down immediately after telling them about it. Sometimes they were really good ideas, but since I did not have confidence in them, they seemed weaker. In my next team experience, I will present my ideas confidently and stand by them.

 

What did you learn about leadership from your team experience in this course that is not captured by the leadership articles and models we discussed in class? In other words, in what ways are these articles and models incomplete, as confirmed by your team experience in this course? (Go beyond the obvious. That “leadership development takes time” is obvious.)

One thing that I learned about leadership that was not included in the models we talked about was the necessity of having strong social skills. There are some very important social skills that one must have to be a successful leader. One has to be able to make friends with other team members. This does not mean that one has to socialize outside of the work setting, but the ability to connect with people in a positive way is important. For me, this happened when our team got off topic and talked about things unrelated to class and the project. We talked about our interests and made jokes. We learned that we had a lot in common. These conversations helped us to transition from a group to a tight-knit team. When I made friends with the people in my group, everything moved more smoothly. We understood each other better and we were more willing to listen to each other because we knew we had some common ground.

It is also important to consistently contribute a high level of effort. If there is one person who does not do his or her share of the work, it causes the rest of the team to resent him or her. In this way, effort is a social skill. One must be able to make a contribution and make sure that the team is aware of their effort because it demonstrates dedication. It is important to avoid bragging or acting like a martyr, though. These actions cause resentment.

The social skills of making friends and contributing consistently high levels of effort make a leader more charismatic, and therefore more effective. People are more likely to follow a leader that they like and that they know is dedicated to excellence. These skills improve the team’s cohesion and create an open, understanding atmosphere.

16
Nov

Second Proposal Draft

This week, we have been working on our second proposal draft.  The feedback we got on the first one was eye-opening.  Our organization was terrible and we had a lot of extra words and sentences that we didn’t need.  We cut out everything we could find that was not important and elaborated on our stronger points.  As we worked, I tried to encourage others to participate and to keep our group’s ideas related to the overall theme of our project.  After all of these weeks working together, we have become a much more efficient and effective team.

09
Nov

Proposal and Prototype

Over the weekend, our team put together the first draft of our proposal.  This was a very challenging process because we had to figure out a way to all work together to put our ideas into one concrete document.  We had a long discussion to narrow down our ideas and figure out the details.  It was very productive, and going into the week, we had a good idea of what we were trying to accomplish.  My role in writing the proposal was to write the conclusion and to edit everyone else’s work together to make it a single, flowing document.  My writing skills as an English major were put to the test.  I had never attempted a task like that, and I learned a lot from it.  I experienced some very challenging situations throughout the editing process.  I was constantly worrying that I would offend my team members by correcting them or by making changes that they did not approve of.  I did my best, though, and it was a valuable experience.

We had our team member evaluations, as well.  I found it very challenging to pass judgment on the other members of my team.  I do not like the responsibility of telling people what they are not good at.  That is something I hope to change by learning how to constructively criticize without offending people.  I was pleasantly surprised by the feedback I got from my group.  For the most part, they seem to appreciate my contributions.  However, I need to work on encouraging other members to participate more.

On Wednesday, we set up a prototype news room.  Watching how people spent their time there was far more valuable than we anticipated.  One of the participants was from France, and he watched some French news.  We had not considered the fact that the business school has a large number of international students.  They may want to see news from their home countries in their own languages.  American students may also want to see foreign news because it is presented differently in each country and it helps to create a balanced view on different topics.  At first, we had envisioned this room as a quiet place, but as the participants saw stories that interested them, they discussed them.  These discussions led to the participants sharing related stories with each other and following up what they heard on other internet sites.  The observations we made in the prototype will help us to improve and shape our project.

02
Nov

Week 5 Blog Post

This week, we had a presentation.  I do not like presenting and I usually get really nervous.  This time, I made sure that I really knew the material and I made up a note card that had just the right information on it so I could look down and remember what I needed to say next if I forgot.  That helped me feel more comfortable and when it came time to actually present, I did I lot better than I have in past presentations.  I stepped out of my comfort zone and got better at something that I usually dread doing.

Our group also got to see where we were in relation to all the other teams.  We have been frustrated lately because we have been confused about defining our problem but it was good to see that we were not the only group in that same situation.  We also got to see how other groups have overcome similar problems in their processes.  We will use what we learned from the presentations to improve our project.

Throughout the weeks, my role on this team has changed.  I have become more and more active.  I often find myself trying to facilitate the ideas of others and make sure that we all stay on the same page.  As a group, we tend to jump from one topic to the next very frequently and I have found myself trying to bring people back to the question at hand.  When we divided up the proposal assignment, we decided that I would be the one to edit it and try and make it flow and make sure that it all fits together.  In a sense, that is what I have been doing when we meet as well.  We come up with ideas and I try to bring them together with the need statement.  Everyone’s role changes a little bit each time we work together, but this is a role I have taken on a few different times now.

26
Oct

Week 4 Blog Post

On Wednesday, I volunteered to be one of the presenters for our group on Monday.  Normally, this is not something I would volunteer for.  I hate speaking in front of an audience.  However, I decided that it would be good for me to face my fears and try to become a more effective speaker. 

I also met with a tutor about the memo assignment.  My biggest mistake was that I did not define the need well enough.  When someone reads a memo, they will ignore even the best solutions if they do not feel that there is a significant need for them.  I need to make the problem clear and compelling so that I can persuade my audience to see its importance.

Our group decided that the problem that we want to address in our project is that students in the LCB seem to be generally unaware of current events.  We believe that students that pay attention to the world around them have a better chance of being successful because they have the ability to connect what they learn in class with what they see in the real world.  As our group begins to come up with more clear solutions to our problem, sometimes we lose sight of that.  Sometimes we get so excited about the solutions we are coming up with that we forget what is most important.  We would like to use some kind of edgy, innovative technology as a solution, but it may be that something low-tech would be more effective.  When we get too focused on the technology, I try and remind everyone to make sure that we do not lose our sense of direction and forget about the problem itself.

18
Oct

Week 3 Blog Post

This week, our group determined our POV.  At first, we had a solution but we were unsure of the need.  After the interviews, we discovered that most students had a very limited knowledge of the current events.  There is a need for a way to connect students with the outside world and so that has become our goal.

As we progressed through the process of determining our POV, there was a lot of frustration among group members.  We knew what we wanted to do, but we were unsure of how to shape it.  By identifying this frustration its cause, we were able to overcome it, for the most part.  Once we knew why we felt that way, it became evident that we were all working and struggling together, and that made us closer as a team.




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