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Week 7

What is holding back my creativity.

 The biggest factor that is holding my creativity is the possibility of it turning out to be a bad idea or to be rejected by others. This can apply to most thins but, in this context, lets stick with school. While I consider myself creative and do have some great ideas, I do hesitate on sharing them. I cannot just shout out ideas as I must determine if it is viable beforehand. This I believe is the root cause as this may reduce the rejection rate of the idea.

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Week 6

Trust

This week is all about the talking stick, now for this story I did not use an actually talking stick but I did try to use the concept.

My friend was looking to buy his very first car. He has no real knowledge of cars and I offered to help him look for one. The very first thing I asked was what he wanted ( I was referring to features, body style, color, brand). He replied that he would just like a newer Honda Civic. Anyone that has gone car buying before know that that is a terrible train of thought of not looking into what you specify what and just “getting any car”.

Not understanding what I meant by specify I had to make sure he understood what he was getting into as there are many ways to get screwed over buying a used car. This was even more prevalent as after our initial talk he went to the first dealership to view a civic expecting to buy it. Thankfully the dealership he went to was sketchy, scaring him off. Here is when applying the “Indian talking stick”. 

I went over and asked him specific questions about what he really wanted braking it down into categories. I made sure that he understood what I meant meant before moving on to the next question. (like the importance of taking it to a mechanic before buying etc.)  With this approach I was able to really find out what he was looking for his new car and make suggestions (as I am more knowledgeable in this topic) thus helping him make a a better informed decision. 

My most notable takeaway is that you always want to make sure both you and the other party understand each other and to organizes the conversation to avoid misunderstanding. By slowing down and not talking over or interrupting the other party you can have a more productive conversation that gets to the point much faster.

Will I used this technique in the future? Yes. I have another friend who’s communications skills are not the greatest. I can show him this technique to improve our integrations a lot better.

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Week 5

Current credo:

·         Will uses my Conscientiousness strength to continue to be a reliable and dependable leader or team member

·         I will continue to use my empathy to communication and receiving feedback form teammates to increase efficiency

·         Strive to develop charisma with my leadership, to energize and rally team members to do their best

·         To improve on courage, take more risks and to speak my mind more freely about ideas I have

In this pandemic era, It has be difficult to find ways to implement my credo, however that all changed last week. In my credo I stated that I would focus on courage, to be able to say thing or make decisions that might not go over well. Well it happened, another group of drama.

This time I made sure not to make past mistakes, I this group we had one member who hardly participated in any discussions. This particular project involved making theoretical business decisions for a shoe company. After mid-terms we had to do mid-term peer review. Due to the three weeks of this team member not participation all of our group members gave her poor review. When the marks came out she began being verbally aggressive to me and the other group members. Normally I would stay on the side lines and to let it pass but not this time. I immediately got straight to the point and told her all the main point that resulted in her getting a bad grade. I had to give her a ultimatum of either start contributing to the team or continue to be given bad grade and possible kicked from the group. I manage to keep calm even when she accrued another group member of deliberately sabotaging her from rumors in the past causing the group to into a heated debate. I kept to my same points and quickly condemned her accusations without resorting to insults myself. 

It took a night rest for the team members to calm down and thankfully we were able to get back on track for the final week of the course. I believe this was a test of courage being able to challenge the aggressive behavior of this specific group member.

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Week 4

When it comes to a moment where I had a high performing team, I remember my Professional Edge class. In this class our group was responsible for creating a booth advertising a country of our choosing. (we chose Japan). We then had to make a public booth with information and activities in the center of the campus “commons”. We also needed a sponsor for our event. 

When choosing groups I ended up with the people at my table. This however turned out to be the best case scenario. Each of the group members were very proactive and engaged in the process. Each team member contributed to the assignment, not afraid to share their ideas. Any conflicts were easily resolved (there were hardly any). 

My part of the assignment was to get the entertainment and financial, while the other created the PowerPoint slides, bought decoration and competed the display board. Looking back there was nothing I would change with the exception of maybe helping out more looking for a sponsor.

This was the polar opposite of another group I had that same semester in which there was nothing with conflict. The one take away from this group would be the communication. Learning to be in constant communication and being as direct as possible is the bet way to reduce the chance of a conflict. which I plan to do with future groups.

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Week 3

Follower Commitment.

After reflecting on how to be an effective follower the part I wish to improve the most on is being more of an “ effective Follower” rather than a “Passive Follower”. To do this I will invest more heavily in the7 Habits. Specifically number 1-4″. I will also focus more one expanding my personal Powers: Knowledge, Persuasion and Speaking the truth. Managing up will not be a priority as I have already been working on this specific Theory.

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Week 2

After doing the Leadership Strength test here is how I can implement my 5 strengths:

Input

Competition

Intellection

Significance

Empathy 

Input: 

Just like the saying goes “knowledge is power”. Input is all about learning knowledge even if its something that you don't need in the moment. When it comes to input it is more of a opportunity than an active skill. Having random knowledge can possibly help me become more versatile. If I'm in a group meeting and someone need help on there part, if I have some knowledge from previous learning I can hop in and help out. This wont work for any situation but every once in a while this “useless knowledge” might come in handy. Having input will make you more rounded instead of just being good at one thing.

Competition:  

This can be very useful in many situations. if you are working on a project or at a job and I see  someone outperforming me. This can give me the motivation to step my game up and not be left behind. I can read how well they are performing and take keys on how to improve my own group work. a great example would be at work at a restaurant. if I see some one making 5 order a minute and I'm doing 2 this will motivate me to try harder.

Intellection:

Being strong in Intellection make me “think out a situation”. This can be very useful in a leadership position, thinking of all the strategies or outcome before making a decision and not acting too rash.  This skill can be used in any situation. one specific instance dealing with conflict in group projects. before responding I can go and evaluate all my alterative to see what would be the best way to handle it. 

Significance:

This one is a little more difficult for me to envision using in a leadership role. This can be useful similar to competition. If I don't see myself being acknowledge for doing anything or I think the other group member find me useful, I will uses the to motivate myself to make sure am seen as a valued member of a team.

Empathy: 

In my opinion Empathy is a very powerful skill to have as a leader. Being able to connect and understand your team members can not only increase relations but can make project more productive as you know you teams strengths and concerns. I can see myself using this especially at work (restaurant) if I see someone stressed out I try to help them get back on track and try understanding their issues. I then can come up with a solution to make the kitchen run better. 

Due to Covid 19 I have not had a chance to try one of these strengths this week. 

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Week 1

When it comes to a memorable experience being in a leadership positioning, one moment comes to mind. This particular moment happened two semesters ago in Professional Selling class. On week 1 the professor asked us to get into groups of four. The professor chose the groups for us and we proceeded to choose a group leader. (not me)

For most of the semester things were going smooth, until the phase 2 part of the assignment. (Which was a hypothetical B2B transaction of selling printers to a bank).The assignment was split into two parts, two people per part.

When we summited the first draft the teacher gave us recommendations to fix it. Once our group received the feedback we began fixing it at home. It was at this time our group crumbled. One of our group members was having a bad day and since we were all home all communication was via WhatsApp texts. We had no idea he was in a bad mood. It started as question, he asked when I was going to add to my part of the report. I was confused what he meant as all my part were finished days ago. I responded that I did not know what he was talking about. Instead of further communication this group member (who also happed to the group leader) sarcastically texted some snarky comments that he would “just do my Part” and abruptly left the WhatsApp group abandoning everyone else. It was at this point I had enough a told the remaining group member that I am the new leader and I was going to fix this situation.

The next class, I gather all the evidence to indicate that I did do my part and got confirmation with the professor. I held a emergency group meeting during the break of the class. I showed evidence and told the ex leader that his behavior was unacceptable and almost got him kicked out of the group. This is when he told us he made a rash decision due to being and a bad mood and apologies. After that I continued to lead the group and there where no more conflict for the rest of the semester. 

When it comes to me being a leader I believe I have good organization and listening skills as well as having an open mind. This particular event was my greatest example of becoming the leader and using my intuition and initiative skills. Once the group crumbled I immediately took charge of the situation and found a solution to resolve it. The thing I learned from this situation is that if you know a way to fix a situation step up and take change. Don’t wait for someone to hopefully do it for you. 

If there is one thing I would like to improve on when it come to leadership, it is to be more stern on making tougher decisions. Specifically when this decision will have some negative reactions from group members. (Like firing a team member due to their actions/ inactions). There have been a few time I where I would of like to fire a team member or to discuss their poor performance with them. There was a case after this story in which I did end up having to take action on making tough decisions that would affect my group members. However I still need improvement.