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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)