Keep plodding on.

Is this now the 4th week we have been out of school? The last few weeks are becoming a blur. The past week was a challenge in being productive with any school assignments. Life did one of it's unexpected moves with my son coming back to the Island last Monday from the mainland with 2 puppies to babysit. Guess who ended up doing the babysitting as he had to go to school! One puppy is only 15 weeks old, so you had to be aware of taking him outside to do his business every hour or so as he is going through the potty training stage. He is so tiny I had to go out with him as I was afraid an eagle would swoop down and snatch him away for a meal. Every time I sat down to try and do any work on the computer they would come and sit by my feet and bug me to play, it's like having small children. So needless to say we did lots of walks and not much homework! It made a break from the routine of the past couple of weeks , but now I have to try and find that routine again! I can't believe that this strike is still on. It sounds like things are getting a little nasty and I wonder what the atmosphere will be like at VIU when this is all over. I suppose it will all depend on what the final outcome will be and how much each side will have to sacrifice. I wonder how innovative both sides have been in trying to find solutions to the issues. Both sides will have to work on developing their strategic leadership qualities once both sides are back to work, such as being respectful, being self aware, spending time self reflecting, using effective communication, building trust and building up healthy relationships again within the organization and with the students. I wonder if either side are presently using any of the above strategies in order to move ahead. Hopefully from this experience both sides will have discovered a healthier innovative way to deal with conflict so that this situation does not happen again. It seems that some of the faculty are now putting pressure on us students that are crossing the line to come to the library. These students have been asked to park their vehicles on the side of 4th street opposite building 255. Not sure what the reasoning is for that as you still cross the picket line to get to the library! I emailed my classmates to see how the general feeling was regarding the end of year bash and the consensus was YES, LET'S DO IT. I think it is a good idea as well as I think we are all feeling demoralized and frustrated, so getting together and letting off steam is probably what we need. The other reason why I think we should do it now is there are a few people sticking to their original plans and leaving the following week. Plus there is the crowd that are heading down to Mexico at the end of the month, so it wouldn't be worth having the party later on and that would be sad. When school does resume it could be very quiet, as I just mentioned many people will not be around. I wonder how motivated we all will be when we get back at this point I am not motivated about going back, my last day is suppose to be a week today.

Change & transitions, Strategic and Innovative leadership

March 22nd's power point asks us "how do we effectively lead change?" It was interesting to read about change and transition. It seems like a fitting topic as we have all had to deal with change and we have been going through the transition. The struggling with motivation, I believe is part of that transition. Speaking for myself, the way I effectively have lead the change is by taking the opportunity of no scheduled sessions and committing myself to getting the 2 largest assignments that I have completed as best as I can before sessions start again. Once that was done, I took a look at what else I could get done and that is where I am now, just working on what ever I can. One thing that helps me get stuff done is to go to the library at VIU. I know it is not really appreciated that we cross the picket line, but I have to take care of me as no one else will, so I made the decision a while back to cross the line and I feel fine about that. As for facing the change of plans and the transition of not going to New Mexico/Mexico, I definitely went through what you could call a grieving period where I was very disappointed and bewildered that people would drop out of a study tour so late in the semester and need to find another 6 credits. But I understood that it was a waste of time to dwell on it, I just had to accept it and be in that transition period. I just floated there for awhile looking at different options and then weighing out what would work best for me. One of the options I looked at was connecting with the PAPR group and letting them know my situation and letting them know that I would be interested in hearing of any opportunities they may have. Last week Grant emailed me with the opportunity to go down to Victoria and listen to a presentation on a new survey tool that has been developed for communities that are next to protected areas. This road trip was offered to me with the intention of seeing whether this could lead into a directed studies, and guess what, it looks like it does. Grant, Rick and myself met today to discuss in more detail what this directed studies could look like. I am hoping that this opportunity will compliment the Aboriginal Tourism directed studies that Dan is willing to work with me on. I am feeling pretty optimistic about this as it should give me a good hands on experience in learning how to organize and find out pertinent information in regards to rural communities and tourism development, which is what I am interested in!! How can I finish the "Team Leader" assignment and maximize the learning? I have to admit that I have been a little slow on this assignment, but what needs to happen is staying in regular contact with the team through email and phone and arranging a weekly meeting to touch base to see what they have done and discuss any issues that came up through the week. As I come into Nanaimo anyway to bring my son in, I am willing to meet the team where ever it is convenient for them and Pascale, my partner. Pascale and I discussed this today and she is emailing them to arrange a meeting. From that we will see where they are at and where they need to go to complete their assignment. As it stood from the last meeting we had, they had completed the organizing and implementing of the event, and just had the report to complete, which they were feeling confident about. At this point I am not sure I will graduate with my class in June, but I am going to try and do that. If it does not happen, I am O.K. with that. I will complete both these directed studies while Tito my son, finishes up at the high school as I have to bring him in anyways, so the timing is perfect. I have not closed the door on attending the Rural Tourism Conference either. My hope is that by completing as many assignments as possible now, I will not be under too much stress when classes start up again, and will feel comfortable about going to the conference. My immediate assignment after this blog is to email my class mates and see what the feeling is on whether we are still having the end of year blow out here in Deep Bay. The date set was for the 08th April, which is just under 2 weeks away, so I am not sure how folk are feeling about that. So in closing, this is how I have been dealing with change and transitions and how I have been strategic and innovative in working around the strike. With any luck, we will be back at VIU pretty soon.

Trying to stay motivated.

The strike continues, it is now 11 days and still things don't look too promising. I wonder how long we have before the strike affects the possibility of us not being able to graduate. Will we have to come back next semester to complete this semester.? If we have to come back next semester, are we suppose to pay for the semester again? What about all the guys in our class that have booked and paid for their trip to Mexico at the end of April? If the semester is extended, this could interfere with their plans.

It has been a struggle trying to stay motivated these past 11 days and I know I am not the only struggling with this. We were motivated and had scheduled our lives around the semester and completing assignments etc and then the strike happened and our balloon was deflated. This has been a good exercise for myself in leading myself in pushing me to get assignments done. It has been a challenge and continues to be a challenge.

Reading the online newsletter, which is found on the power point for March 17 (strategic leadership), there is a section on selecting a power strategy and I was going through them to see if I could understand what power strategy the union are using. My guess is they are using the "negotiating with others" strategy, which I guess makes sense. But I am wondering if they were to use more of the "Involving others" strategy whether there would be more openness and understanding on both sides and a possibility of finding a compromise. I would think that the "negotiating with others strategy" just leads to mistrust, secrecy, misinformation and a negative environment delaying or even preventing a healthy result. I think that John Ruttan's leadership strategy is a very healthy strategy and I would say we (the class) have pretty much come up with the same points, so we must be on the right track. Do you think that this strategy would not have worked between the administration and the VIUFA?

Hope to see you all soon.

Your thoughts on team-work

Thanks classmates for listening to Billy and I present our book - "Feel the fear and do it anyway". Hope you got something out of that. I sure did, as soon as that class was over and I went and checked on my emails, there was an email informing me that my trip to New Mexico/Mexico was cancelled. Not only was I verrrrry excited about going on this trip, the study tour was worth 6 credits. Initially I was stunned, but the advice from "Feel the fear" kicked in and I realised I had to nod my head up and down and not fight my universe by shaking my head side to side. At the moment I have no idea where I stand as there is now the strike to get through. It might be that I will not be graduating with the majority of my class, which is sad, but I have to work with my reality and if I cannot complete my 6 credits by May, I will have to accept that in-order to move forward.

It was very interesting listening to Ruska's presentation on team work and I thought it reinforced the importance on how cultures play an important aspect in understanding and working with your team-mates. How does the team work together with such differences? In class we talked about each member must be real, creating a safe environment is important, so that each team member feels safe and appreciated for their differences. It is important to find a common goal to work towards. We learnt that teams need a deviant to help stir things up in order to see different aspects to the situation. Possibly the person that has come from a different culture could bring in different aspects, so being open minded is important to allow different ideas to grow. This is a great opportunity to see how creative the team can be. It was suggested that teams need competition. I see a problem here if team members do not completely understand each other. I believe that everyone is competitive, but not necessarily competitive against other people. There are people who are competitive against themselves and that creates a different energy, therefore if there is a competition, it is important that team members are aware of each members driving force and how to get the best out of each member.



I too came from a back ground where team work was not part of my education. You worked on your own, but I actually do not mind working with teams. It is important for me to find a team that I am comfortable with and who are organized, reliable and committed. When there are team members that are not reliable that does cause friction and it is difficult to find a solution to that. So I understand Ruska's statement about "don't count on teams generating magic", it definitely is not always the case.

The article "Can I have your half attention, please?" is interesting. It is true that some people in class have their laptops open and have half a dozen sites open at the same time and I wonder how can they be getting 100% out of the class with their attention in 6 or 7 different places. The response of one person regarding banning laptops in class was interesting, she said that her attention span only lasted so long and that she could not imagine living without her laptop. The article goes on to say that students have too much pressure to concentrate specifically on just one thing and that students have jobs and other things and that they are trying to get everything done at once and so they don't have the luxury to just sit and concentrate only on the lecture (Pinchin, 2009). Well from the book "Feel the fear", Jeffers tells us that we need to be 100% involved in each box of our lives. So maybe by being focused on one aspect of our lives at one time will lessen the stress and we will allow ourselves the time to succeed in each area of our lives. It's just a thought.

That's it for this entry, see you next week.

It is count down - 5 weeks to go

With only 5 weeks left to complete all assignments, the pressure is on and being organized and prioritizing the work load is critical.
This coming week we get to present our book summaries that we chose. It will be interesting to finally hear what my classmates have been talking about throughout the semester about the books they chose to read.

Thanks Pascale for sharing your power point presentation on the Neuroscience Leadership Conference. I found the information on the Prefrontal Cortex very interesting and to understand that our black box takes time to grow and mature. This information reinforces the importance of letting yourself stand back and not respond until you have had time to reflect. This is something that I have to remember and work on especially when I am emotionally charged! It is comforting to know that this part of the brain can be rewired.

The book that I chose to read for this class is "Feel the Fear and do it anyway" and after listening to you present your power point, it is interesting to see how there is a connection between what Susan Jeffers talks about and the Amygdala and the Prefrontal Cortex parts of the brain. In Chapter 10 she tells us that it is very important to be able to give freely without expecting anything back. What she is saying is that when we are a baby we depend 100% on our parents to feed and take care of us and that when we become adults we subconsiously hold onto that fear. This fear blocks the ability to give freely, she says that "metaphorically, we remain frightened that no one will come to relieve our hunger, whether the hunger is for food, love, money, praise and so on", so when we do something for someone, we expect that favour to be returned somehow. I would say that would be the Amygdala part of the brain controlling us. By becoming aware of that underlining fear and working on self to let go of that fear, you start to rewrite and strengthen your Prefrontal Cortex. I find that to be a really powerful insight.

Mark and Chris put on a couple of interesting exercises for us to figure out. The first exercise I took part in was standing on the tarpoline along with probably about 10 other people and trying to turn it around without stepping on the ground. What I observed from being in the crowed was I intially suggested taking a corner of the tarpoline and slowly bringing it into the middle allowing people time to find a footing on the other side of the material. What happened next from my prespective was Tiffany, who was behind me and at a slightly different angle suggested something similar but bringing up the tarpoline from a different corner. We were managing to get our feet on the inside of the material and had to hold onto each other, but we then seemed to come to a stop. Colette then took up the leadership role and managed to get us all transfered over to the other side. What I observed from that exercise was the obvious leaders, but I also observed that we all took a leadership role in the sense of supporting each other and guiding each other so that we wouldn't fall off the tarpoline. It was interesting and a lot of fun good job guys.

On the 16th April there is a "TASTE OF OCEANSIDE EVENT" which is a Rotary Club fundraiser. What is being offered is tastings of different foods from local restaurants in the area. Some of the restaurants that have confirmed their participation are: Tigh-na-mara, Landing West Coast Grill-Pacific Shores, Litttle Qualicum Cheese Works, Pacific Prime Restaurant-Beach Club, Rod & Gun Pub and Cafe and Thalassa-Memorial Golf Club, just to mention a few. Tickets are $15.00 and can be pre purchased at Marlin Trave in Parksville and the event is held at the Parksville Community and Conference Centre. So come on out and enjoy what this part of the world has to offer food wise. Some of these restaurants offer top of the line food.

That's it for this week.

TAKING RISKS, BREAKING BOUNDARIES

I am running behind with my blogging this past week. The pressure has been on to get the 1st draft done for our Grad Sem research paper, so my usual schedule got reshuffled to accommodate this deadline. It got done on time and handed in yesterday afternoon, sure felt good.

Last week Eddie Johnson came in and spoke to us on his experiences in taking on leadership roles. I found him to be very refreshing, he came across as a very gentle soul, but very brave. It was very inspiring hearing him freely talk about his dyslexia and how he faced that fear, tackled the demon and re-invented himself. The book I am reading for this class is "Feel the Fear and do it anyway" and the author talks about the only way to over come ones fear is to face it and then it is not a fear anymore, I would say that is what Eddie did and he succeeded. He is such a soft spoken man, but I would say he had every ones attention as there was not much in the way of restlessness going on around the class room, in fact by the end of the talk, it was dead quiet in the class room. I think we were all riveted to what Eddie was saying. He said a lot of things, but a couple of things that really stood out for me were that he too knew he was a leader and that he didn't want to accept that. Wendy said the exact same thing, I am guessing that natural leaders don't necessarily want to be leaders. The other thing that impressed me was Eddie talking about stepping out of the norm and changing the traditional way by believing in his artistic vision . The canoe that he and his dad built is very graceful and he sounds very proud of his creation, which he should be. It sounds like his dad and others were able to accept Eddies artistic style which to me looks like it's an evolving 1st Nations artistic style and I think that is healthy as change keeps things moving so that things don't become stagnant.

The second class of the week looked at conflict and how to deal with it. It was interesting hearing Jim mention that a boss he had would intentionally bring conflict in to help create new and innovative ideas. There must be a particular way one would conduct a session with conflict as not everyone is comfortable in dealing with it. I am sure it would be a good exercise to go through in understanding a healthy way of dealing with conflict. There must be boundaries in place and conditions laid down as far as respect and emotional control towards the opposing opponents. It was interesting to hear Rushkia state the he likes conflict, my understanding would be that he is comfortable dealing with conflict. I am off the other side of the spectrum, I don't like conflict, but I do need to deal with it other wise it chews away at me. I have to work on my EQ though as I am a pretty emotional person and one area that it comes out in, is in my voice which becomes shaky!

Hope everyone is taking some time off this reading break and having fun. I drove into Nanaimo today not realising that it was snowing cats and dogs down the road from me. It was chaos on the roads, fender benders everywhere and traffic backed up. They ended up closing the highway out of Nanoose for awhile. Lucky for me I got through just before they decided to shut her down.

I am posting a link here that some of you maybe interested in. Wendy told us about the the Link Project - Vancouver Island Economic Alliance project that she worked on last year. ViEA is hosting an initative called Linking Island Businesses which will be held April 13, 2011. The main aim of this project is to encourage local businesses to build and develop stronger trade relationships by expanding their traditional boundaries. Check out the links, the first link takes you to the main page and the second link takes you directly to Linking Island Businesses. (You might have to copy and paste them in).

http://www.viea.ca/
http://www.viea.ca/index.php?page=80

That it for this week, see you all next week. Have fun, stay safe.

We are leaders.

I would just like to acknowledge the folk that have led the seminar discussions in Aggie's class (Graduation Seminars) and comment on how well they have played the leadership role. Watching them facilitate the discussion shows how organized and prepared one must be. So far we have had 3 sessions and each facilitator has done an excellent job in coming prepared with a lay-out they planned to follow and questions that pertained to their planned sections. They then controlled the discussion and kept it on track and all within the allotted time frame. The other leadership role played was the awareness of who had their hand up first and keeping control of the right order. I thought the last session we had was exceptionally well done with the leader drawing in the audience that were not readily participating. By drawing everyone in, the conversation expanded with a broader bank of information. Job well done, guys.

Ana's presentation in this weeks class was very powerful and motivational. It takes an exceptional person to take on such a leadership role and basically dedicate your life to the cause. Being back in Uganda this past summer, I was amazed that I did not see any homeless children on the streets. When I was back in 2005 there was a fair population of homeless people, many of them refugees from the Sudan and other neighbouring countries as well as orphaned children. But both the government and individuals have stepped up and taken control of the situation for example creating local NGO's to help support families and communities deal with their orphans. To me this shows great leadership, sacrifice and commitment.

Class on Thursday was interesting looking at leadership and mental models. In regards to body language, I do believe that the body is powerful in portraying messages, but I wonder too if recipients decoding the message actually read the message correctly from the sender. We never really talked about that in class so I would like to mention that I think it is important to question the sender to make sure that you received the correct message.

It was also interesting to hear peoples thoughts on listening and writing down notes on what they were hearing. I agree that when listening to someone talk and writing down what they are saying, I miss a lot of what of what is being said, but on the other hand, I will not remember what was said if I don't write it down, it is a bit of a dilemma! To solve that problem, what I have started doing when I go to a meeting that I need to remember everything, I record it and that way I can just listen.

Cultural differences are always fascinating and if one is not aware that there are cultural differences when addressing someone, it could lead to a poor start to the relationship. We definitely are very much a "lets get on with it and solve the problem" culture and we generally don't spend too much time if any time discussing things such as asking how your wife is and your children and your mother and father etc, etc, etc,. before getting on with the meeting topic. Time is money. Different cultures have different protocols towards greeting and meeting people, so with the world becoming more and more globalized it is important that more awareness is made regarding leadership and cultural differences. Check out the following YouTube. They are on a International cultural leadership conference held in London.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7sJfVl8qew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Law9s4XxSzY&NR=1