Monday, April 4, 2011
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.
Monday, March 28, 2011
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.
Monday, March 21, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
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
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
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Full on week
28TH JANUARY - 04TH FEBRUARY
Thanks L.A., for helping me find my way around this blogging site. Where to start, this has been a pretty full on week for me with different things going on. Thanks to Anne's blog on finding balance, I need to re-evaluate my prioritise and make time to exercise. It is the one area in my life that I find challenging to maintain. Ken, you are right about it being a matter of prioritising, so I need to look and see how I can find a balance here. From doing the Enneagram test and getting confirmation that I strive for perfection, maybe that is an area that I need to focus on and put things into perspective in order to make time to exercise. It is not easy though as it is important for me to prove to me that I can succeed. It is one of the main reasons as to why I went back to school, to prove to myself that I am university material. But on the other hand, my body is not happy with all this sitting, it is moaning. So it is important for me to find that balance, lets see how this week pans out!
Amanda and Brendan, thanks for a great class and a great exercise. It was interesting to see the different scenarios that came out of that. I guess our team missed the point about being so creative as to build a whole different world, they were very creative scenarios. Our team seemed to be the only team that worked within the realities of this world and I think if we had spent more time on combing the 3 items together to create a 10 year plan instead of spending too much time on individual ideas of what you could use those 3 items for, we would have become millionaires.
I hope the class enjoyed Wendy's presentation. I was impressed with the fact that she could stand up there for an hour and ad lib her speech. It is one of my goals to eventually be able to stand up in front of a group of people and be able to speak without reading from my notes. I think you have to really know your stuff to be able to do that.
Some of the interesting points that I got out of her presentation were; taking the time to reflect on yourself, understanding what you like, what you don't like, who you want to be, what you want to achieve. This message has come to be a couple of time now, Micki mentioned the same thing on the importance of self-reflecting. I guess we all know this at some level, but actually spending the time to really figure all that out, is not something I have spent much time over. Now is the perfect time for me to start doing that as my kids are up and on their way and don't really need me anymore, so it is my time to re-learn who I am, I am not just a mum.
Thanks L.A., for helping me find my way around this blogging site. Where to start, this has been a pretty full on week for me with different things going on. Thanks to Anne's blog on finding balance, I need to re-evaluate my prioritise and make time to exercise. It is the one area in my life that I find challenging to maintain. Ken, you are right about it being a matter of prioritising, so I need to look and see how I can find a balance here. From doing the Enneagram test and getting confirmation that I strive for perfection, maybe that is an area that I need to focus on and put things into perspective in order to make time to exercise. It is not easy though as it is important for me to prove to me that I can succeed. It is one of the main reasons as to why I went back to school, to prove to myself that I am university material. But on the other hand, my body is not happy with all this sitting, it is moaning. So it is important for me to find that balance, lets see how this week pans out!
Amanda and Brendan, thanks for a great class and a great exercise. It was interesting to see the different scenarios that came out of that. I guess our team missed the point about being so creative as to build a whole different world, they were very creative scenarios. Our team seemed to be the only team that worked within the realities of this world and I think if we had spent more time on combing the 3 items together to create a 10 year plan instead of spending too much time on individual ideas of what you could use those 3 items for, we would have become millionaires.
I hope the class enjoyed Wendy's presentation. I was impressed with the fact that she could stand up there for an hour and ad lib her speech. It is one of my goals to eventually be able to stand up in front of a group of people and be able to speak without reading from my notes. I think you have to really know your stuff to be able to do that.
Some of the interesting points that I got out of her presentation were; taking the time to reflect on yourself, understanding what you like, what you don't like, who you want to be, what you want to achieve. This message has come to be a couple of time now, Micki mentioned the same thing on the importance of self-reflecting. I guess we all know this at some level, but actually spending the time to really figure all that out, is not something I have spent much time over. Now is the perfect time for me to start doing that as my kids are up and on their way and don't really need me anymore, so it is my time to re-learn who I am, I am not just a mum.
- I loved her comment about reducing stress by "under promising and over delivering". I think that is a very wise insight and important to know so that you don't set yourself up to fall.
- Understanding your boundaries, that goes hand in hand with what I was just talking about finding balance and prioritizing. I know that I have to work hard to succeed, I also know that my body needs to be taken care of as well, so I have to re-evaluate my priorities and find a healthy balance that works for both areas. Maybe that means lessening the demand I put on my school life.
- Respect, trust and generosity, these sound like common sense, but until you are actually faced with a situation where you have to either work with someone who has different values or has the opportunity to get the job you wanted, it is not so easy to be gracious or respectful.
These are great tools for building strategic leadership skills. Has anyone had time to take a look at the web site of the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance organization? In case anyone is interested, April 13th at the Community Centre in Parksville there is a session taking place where businesses from all over the island will be coming together to collaborate, communicate, network to share resources and information. Check it out http://www.viea.ca/index.php?page=80
OUT NIGHT CLUBBING TO DUB-STEP
21ST JANUARY - 28TH JANUARY
Thank you all who have contributed to my blog and for the words of encouragement.
This has been a pretty intense week; in fact it is hard to believe that it is only a week since I started blogging!
I have spent a lot of time being a family leader in particular at the end of last week and during the weekend. Both my sons have their birthdays 2 days apart, so that always requires making time to think about and buy presents and organize either a special dinner and cake or an outing or something. This year was my youngest son's
19th birthday and my eldest son arranged for a nightclub event over on the mainland. So I was busy with the normal purchasing of presents and arranging for a cake to be sent to the restaurant where we were all going to meet up and then coordinating with friends and family, and deciding whether we should book a suite at a hotel down town so that no one had to drive. There seems to always be something that trips you up in my family, like getting to the restaurant and finding out that the folk responsible for bringing the presents there left them in the taxi! That caused a bit of panic, but with the help of city dwellers, we were able to track them down and get them to the restaurant without too much stress. It was a great event with a big turn out and everyone had a blast. For Bon and myself it was quite a learning curve in experiencing today's nightclubs, I felt like I was going down into a dungeon to where this very different kind of music was playing called dub step. It is a loud drum base beat, which seems to be the new thing, interesting!
Pascale, Chris and I interviewed Micki last Thursday. She was very honoured that we chose her as she seemed to think there were other leaders that were better qualified for this assignment. I am not sure that I totally agree with her as I feel she plays a significant leadership role in all our lives right through the program. This became evident as we progressed through the interview as she mentioned the importance on her part of being aware of the growth that takes place throughout the 4 years with the students and how her leadership has to accommodate that. She is one instructor that really gets to know us on a more personal level, I think, as she feels she needs to understand what it is we are looking for and in order to help us find what we want she needs to take the time to get to know us on that more personal level. That also plays a role in how she works with each of us individually as a leader. One thing that struck me with a disciple that she works on, is taking enough time at the end of the day and reflecting on her day to see what worked and what did not work so well. This is an exercise that she feels strongly about as it helps her to see where she can improve her leadership abilities and take action if need be in areas that need the attention. I would say that Micki is being strategic and innovative in her style of leadership.
This week in class we looked at the importance of understanding our strengths and weaknesses, whether dressing formally is an important strategy, the importance of self reflection, evaluating self, developing and maintaining confidence and taking risks.
Understanding strengths and weaknesses I believe is a life long journey. As Micki says taking the time to reflect on your day and assessing what went well and why and what did not go as well as intended and why and what went terribly wrong and why, is a good tool to see where you have weaknesses and where your strengths lie. The biggest challenge here is being disciplined and allowing self the time to do the reflection. In my present reality time is the challenge, it is like finding time for exercise, that too is important, and it is a challenge to make room for all these things. So then balance comes into play and figuring out what is the propriety order that works best for you. That comes around to whether you have the strength to be disciplined!
I did the Enneagram test and I guess there was nothing too surprising that came out of that. There was confirmation that I strive for perfectionism, so I guess it is time that I accept that truth. I have been accused of being too hard on myself and setting high standards, but I have not recognized that within me, so maybe there is truth there. My other high scores are helpfulness, adventurousness and anxiety. I do have to agree with anxiety being a weakness of mine. This I find is a difficult trait to conquer. The book I am reading "Feel the Fear and then do it anyway" is brilliant in trying to help me understand fear and how it can freeze you if you don't know how to live with fear and understanding it is just part of growing stronger. Hopefully this knowledge will benefit me in growing stronger and conquering anxiety.
Being adventurous is definitely something I am aware of. I thrive on the unexpected and the unknown. My adventurousness is not driving at dangerous speeds or jumping out of airplanes, it is more of handling crisis situations or doing whatever it takes to get to where ever I need to get to. I am not someone who can live in a consistent and safe environment; I need that uncertainty and unexpectedness. It must be something to do with coming from Africa. Consistency, certainty and safety become very boring for me.
Enough talking, I am now going to "try" and post this without losing it all!
Thank you all who have contributed to my blog and for the words of encouragement.
This has been a pretty intense week; in fact it is hard to believe that it is only a week since I started blogging!
I have spent a lot of time being a family leader in particular at the end of last week and during the weekend. Both my sons have their birthdays 2 days apart, so that always requires making time to think about and buy presents and organize either a special dinner and cake or an outing or something. This year was my youngest son's
19th birthday and my eldest son arranged for a nightclub event over on the mainland. So I was busy with the normal purchasing of presents and arranging for a cake to be sent to the restaurant where we were all going to meet up and then coordinating with friends and family, and deciding whether we should book a suite at a hotel down town so that no one had to drive. There seems to always be something that trips you up in my family, like getting to the restaurant and finding out that the folk responsible for bringing the presents there left them in the taxi! That caused a bit of panic, but with the help of city dwellers, we were able to track them down and get them to the restaurant without too much stress. It was a great event with a big turn out and everyone had a blast. For Bon and myself it was quite a learning curve in experiencing today's nightclubs, I felt like I was going down into a dungeon to where this very different kind of music was playing called dub step. It is a loud drum base beat, which seems to be the new thing, interesting!
Pascale, Chris and I interviewed Micki last Thursday. She was very honoured that we chose her as she seemed to think there were other leaders that were better qualified for this assignment. I am not sure that I totally agree with her as I feel she plays a significant leadership role in all our lives right through the program. This became evident as we progressed through the interview as she mentioned the importance on her part of being aware of the growth that takes place throughout the 4 years with the students and how her leadership has to accommodate that. She is one instructor that really gets to know us on a more personal level, I think, as she feels she needs to understand what it is we are looking for and in order to help us find what we want she needs to take the time to get to know us on that more personal level. That also plays a role in how she works with each of us individually as a leader. One thing that struck me with a disciple that she works on, is taking enough time at the end of the day and reflecting on her day to see what worked and what did not work so well. This is an exercise that she feels strongly about as it helps her to see where she can improve her leadership abilities and take action if need be in areas that need the attention. I would say that Micki is being strategic and innovative in her style of leadership.
This week in class we looked at the importance of understanding our strengths and weaknesses, whether dressing formally is an important strategy, the importance of self reflection, evaluating self, developing and maintaining confidence and taking risks.
Understanding strengths and weaknesses I believe is a life long journey. As Micki says taking the time to reflect on your day and assessing what went well and why and what did not go as well as intended and why and what went terribly wrong and why, is a good tool to see where you have weaknesses and where your strengths lie. The biggest challenge here is being disciplined and allowing self the time to do the reflection. In my present reality time is the challenge, it is like finding time for exercise, that too is important, and it is a challenge to make room for all these things. So then balance comes into play and figuring out what is the propriety order that works best for you. That comes around to whether you have the strength to be disciplined!
I did the Enneagram test and I guess there was nothing too surprising that came out of that. There was confirmation that I strive for perfectionism, so I guess it is time that I accept that truth. I have been accused of being too hard on myself and setting high standards, but I have not recognized that within me, so maybe there is truth there. My other high scores are helpfulness, adventurousness and anxiety. I do have to agree with anxiety being a weakness of mine. This I find is a difficult trait to conquer. The book I am reading "Feel the Fear and then do it anyway" is brilliant in trying to help me understand fear and how it can freeze you if you don't know how to live with fear and understanding it is just part of growing stronger. Hopefully this knowledge will benefit me in growing stronger and conquering anxiety.
Being adventurous is definitely something I am aware of. I thrive on the unexpected and the unknown. My adventurousness is not driving at dangerous speeds or jumping out of airplanes, it is more of handling crisis situations or doing whatever it takes to get to where ever I need to get to. I am not someone who can live in a consistent and safe environment; I need that uncertainty and unexpectedness. It must be something to do with coming from Africa. Consistency, certainty and safety become very boring for me.
Enough talking, I am now going to "try" and post this without losing it all!
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Frannies Strategic Leadership & Innovation blogging begins
I feel pretty proud of myself, I got this blog site set up all by myself! Thanks Paul for showing me how to import pictures.
Blogging is not in my comfort zone as I am not comfortable talking about myself and opening up. I am basically a shy and introverted person, so I am stepping out of my comfort zone and giving this a try.
Reasons that I chose blogging for an assignment are:
Blogging is not in my comfort zone as I am not comfortable talking about myself and opening up. I am basically a shy and introverted person, so I am stepping out of my comfort zone and giving this a try.
Reasons that I chose blogging for an assignment are:
- To learn what strengths and weaknesses I have regarding leadership. The hope is that I will build confidence within self, learn more about me and discover areas that I can strengthen or change within.
- The idea is to blog about what we have learnt through the week with the intention of disgesting what we covered.
- The hope is that blogging what we have learnt will help me retain the information. I have a weakness in that department.
I have never thought of self as a leader in terms of leading in a business environment. Of course I am a mother and a wife, so have naturally the responsibility of taking care of my children and my home, working together as a husband/wife team and a family team and that is taking a leadership role.
The thought of leading a crew of employees and/or being responsible for a department or organization leaves me feeling some what intimidated. I come from the era of 'do as I say and don't argue", and I know that I feel very uncomfortable with taking on that type of leadership role. Thank goodness we have evolved from that time and that there are different leadership models one can choose to follow. The more I learn about Stewardship leadership, the more comfortable I feel about taking a leadership role and I look forward to learning more about this model. This model feels right for me as I see many advantages of working with my coworkers on a more equal footing and growing together as a team.
Ken asked us what Strategic and Innovation meant to us. At this point my understanding of these two words are:- Strategic to me sounds very military. Specific plans are made to reach a specific goal and specific steps have to be taken to reach that goal.
Here is a link that talks about strategic leadership, "Defining the challenge".
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/win03/guillot.html
Innovation to me means creativity, openess, stepping out of the norm, looking for differences, trying new things.
Following is a link with a definition by Hutch Carpenter with his interpretation on innovation.
http://www.cloudave.com/202/definition-of-innovation/
My understanding so far on Strategic leadership and Innovation is that the leadership has strategies to reach it's goals, the innovation is part of the leadership model which creates an atmosphere of building teamwork, sharing of ideas, trust, creating a healthier work culture in order to reach the goals in a more conducive and cooperative manner. To me it sounds more like my understanding of stewardship leadership.
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