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.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
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!
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