Final Post

One of the interesting subjects for me was the topic of intuition and confirmation bias. We have all had right and wrong intuitions in different matters, but we have to be careful not to make decisions solely based on our instincts. It’s amazing that how as rational beings we make many of our judgments based on our feelings, and any evidence that supports our hunches seems credible to us automatically, as we tend to ignore any contradictory evidence. For instance, If we have a good feeling about a new system, a project or even our personal relationships, even if we get warning signs of early troubles, we usually tend to interpret the evidence in our favor and pretend like everything’s going well. A wrong intuition and overconfidence in our feelings can lead to erroneous decisions.

My favorite book was Drive by Daniel Pink. The subject of motivation is always engaging to me since being motivated to enjoy my job is a constant problem for me. I get tired of any job and task easily. Even an activity that I consider my favorite hobby at one point, will become a nuisance after some time. The introduction of this book prompted me to read the related article in the Reader more closely. What I liked about the book was dividing intrinsic motivation into three elements of autonomy, mastery and purpose. I believe at least one of these three elements was missing in all the jobs I’ve held in the past few years. Whenever I liked the task in my job, due to the supervisors' micromanagement, I didn’t have enough autonomy to perform the task the way I wanted, . When I was working as a computer programmer, I had the autonomy and purpose, but unfortunately didn’t see the capacity in myself to improve - and without enough motivation I left the field of computer science indefinitely.

The Final Post

Be honest with you, I did not think leadership skill is that important and hard to obtain before I took the class. However, through many activities, books, and lectures, I began to grasp the essentials of leadership. My deepest internal feeling about this topic/ skill is that leadership is everywhere in our lives. If we spend time carefully to examine things around us, we can find leadership is everywhere. Without the ability to recognize its existence, people would have a meaningfulness life. I like this leadership development class not only because it helps me define my personal mission, value, and goals but also it helps me realize the importance of caring others with your heart and love.

I like to thank Dr. Johnson for providing us with many wonderful activities and lectures to help each of us developing our leadership skill. I learned many great principles underlie the activities designed by Dr. Johnson. People learned things through experiences instead of pure equations and principles from textbooks. I like all the activities designed by Dr. Johnson.

As for the book, I like to recommend one called Multiplier. This book helps you define clearly about who is a multiplier and who is a diminisher. Multipliers have characteristics of helping others, listening to others, and caring for others. These multipliers receive way more benefits than they actually give away to people who need help. It is a very interesting book to read. Hopefully, you would enjoy reading the book.

Good Luck to all of you and have a wonderful life ~~

Final Post

The reading that I found most interesting and useful was “How to manage your boss”. The topic of “managing up” was really interesting and definitely something I have observed but never paid close attention to or attempted to do myself. The reading came at a crucial time for me because I just got a new boss. My new boss is completely different from my other boss and I wasn’t quite sure how to “manage” the relationship. My old boss was very detail oriented and put everything into lengthy emails, as her primary form of communication. My new boss, is a male, and sis much more concerned with “big picture” results / problems and less concerned with whether I had a bad day or not. He also prefers to communicate in person, and constantly asks me to “remind him later” about issues I bring up. This was an adjustment for me and I was reluctant to have to adapt to his style. However the article showed me this is critical to having a successful relationship with your boss, not just for me personally but for the organization as a whole to function efficiently. I was able to point out the differences in his style and personality and adapt my behavior accordingly.

The book I found the most interesting was “Drive” by Daniel Pink. This book really spoke to me about motivation and made me realize that it is important to find out what motivates you and why. I still am trying to figure out “my sentence” and I think I am getting there. The book (presentation) also made me start to think that it is important to make every day count. To continually improve, and think about your actions and the how and why of what you do. I do feel like I get stuck in going through the motions, just waiting to get off work and waiting for the weekends to come. I am hoping to purchase and read the book after this semester because I felt the material is valuable. Also in a previous posting I mentioned that I am extrinsically motivated, and I would like to work on my intrinsic motivation. This book seems like it will help me to do that.

One book that I have read that I think is really important, but it may not be appropriate for the class as a whole since it is for women, is “Nice Girls Don’t get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make to Sabotage Their Careers”. This book definitely relates to our leadership class particularly for women in “observing” yourself and how you act, dress, talk; overall impression management. The author makes the argument that women engage in their own self-defeating behavior that prevents them from moving ahead at work. For example; smiling too much, being overly apologetic, taking on additional tasks all the time. The author discusses how women should act in meetings (power positions etc.) and even gets down to personal appearance: dress, too much makeup, not enough make-up , too much flashy jewelry, age-appropriate hairstyles. This book was really important for me because the author talks about how we are raised to be “nice girls” and that acting too “nice” all the time at work and engaging in demeaning behavior gives the impression that you are not a good fit for higher positions. The author lists in 101 mistakes and even though most women do not engage in all of them I think that a lot of women, including myself, make at least about 1/3 of the mistakes at some point or another. It is a great book with valuable insight and I recommend it to all my friends.

The Final Blog

The Final Blog= It is Just the Beginning

Why I chose This Course
Walking into this leadership course I was cynical about the possibilities and benefits of this class. I had very specific questions and a deep desire to learn about theoretical, academic leadership. Yet my limitation was my inability to see how the course generalities and possibilities could develop my “own” personal leadership style. I focused so much on the 30,000 foot flight above it all, that I found trouble landing my plane in the moment of the” here and now.”

My Personal Road Block
My cynicism and sharp criticism kept me from information processing on a relational level; meaning I had little value or understanding of the simplistic, applied view of leadership presented in class. I added this course because essentially I was captivated by the theory of leadership and not the practice of leadership. I guess you might say that I was looking for the theoretical approach to explaining leadership complexities and not how to implement them. My personal failure was that I did not see myself as a leader although in many many ways I was. Now that I think of it, it was ignorant on my part not to think of myself as a leader, when I was responsible for the total operation of a bookstore that paid my mortgage and put food on my children’s table. I am not sure how much more of a “bread and butter” leadership issue that could be.

What I Learned
Thankfully I learned from the course that there are many ways to finish the sentence “Leadership is…” I learned leadership could be viewed subjectively because the definition of leadership is as fickle as the type of people drawn to leadership roles. Throughout the semester we engaged in innocuous activities which evolved the leadership process. Each week, each activity, we found linkages and connections that allowed us to define our “own” personal interpretation of leadership. Dr. Johnson acted as both a guide and a facilitator of leadership in action. Thank you Dr. Johnson.


Memorable Activity
My most memorable class activity was choosing survival tools. I enjoyed the activity because it called upon my role as an influence and motivator. Having a medical background allowed me to call on my previous learning and not behave callously.

What Books Would I Suggest?
Bookstore shelves are filled with popular books about leaders and everyone I meet is mesmerized by the idea of leadership. Just a few weeks ago I left the book, Leadership Defined, published by Insight Publishing, (ISBN 0970620861) on a table at the Fourth Street Café and it was picked up in under five minutes. I strategically placed the book on a table and watched from a distance as five individuals timidly thumbed through the table of contents. Finally one last individual, overcome with interest, came along and just procured the book thinking no one would notice.
This is a silly but thought-provoking marketing gimmick that I use when deciding which hot sellers might work well in my bookstore inventory. I can’t tell you how many books people believe they have stolen from me, when in fact they have been considered by my business as advertising tax deductions.

I stumbled across an excellent read, Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, (ISBN 0735203245) and fell madly in love with a stunning woman who loved America deeply. For me Eleanor Roosevelt transformed the world with her leadership and weaved her story into empowerment and goal setting. I can’t think of any other woman singularly that I respect and admire more. It’s Your Time, (ISBN 978 1439100127) by Joel Osteen is a magnificent warm holiday re-read for those of you who don’t mind the religious focus or tone. I enjoy that he uses practical tools for moving forward and realizing one’s dreams. Now how could I forget, Why We Make Mistakes, by Joseph Hallinan, (ISBN 9780767925052) I could not put the book down for lack of a better word. The book takes an interesting stab at how most of us desire and believe that we are more than average. This premise is researched and connected to both our strengths and weaknesses. In conclusion the class is a valuable addition to the MBA curriculum for anyone who is insightful enough to want to discover the tools to empower themselves.

Final Blog Topic

We've reached the end of this part of your leadership journey - and hopefully you are ready to continue on your own! In this posting, please write about what activity, topic, or reading you found the most interesting and useful. It may be interesting to see how others saw the class and what they found of value.

Also, please briefly describe which book - other than your own - you think was most useful to learn about and if you know of other books that you think would be useful for a future class, please provide the title!

Blog Topic #7 Perceptions

Just fill in the blanks
Every ethnic group is plagued by inaccurate stereotypes. First things first, let’s be real honest about one thing: we all stereotype. For example, say you’re running late to attend a conference and you get lost. You see two groups of people walking by in the hallway. Who would you rather stop to ask for directions to the conference? Most you ask directions from someone who looks like you. One benefit stereotyping has is to simplify our lives by helping us make split-second choices. It’s snap mental shorthand for making decisions. When you have run out of the necessary time to make an educated decision about something you rely on stereotypes to fill in the missing ingredients; in this case it is information.
Our classroom activity regarding two truths and one lie played into this very concept of snap judgment. From an evolutionary viewpoint, a bias toward the negative makes perfect sense. When we see a warning sign in something we are unfamiliar with, we learn and remember what is safe from what is unsafe. Science has shown that people are able to pick an angry face out of a crowd of happy faces faster than selecting a happy face out of a crowd of angry faces. As a means of self-protection we want to be alerted to danger so that we are primed for action.
When I told my lie I primed and laced it with a grain of truth, and used the stereotype of class and ethnicity in my favor. I peppered my lie with the belief that African American women are always angry, and if given an appropriate opportunity can react violently.
So stereotypes can work as an advantage for those who understand how to use them as a competitive advantage. A “stereotype" simply is a generalization about a person or group that we know very little about. In the case of the classroom activity we were perfect candidates because we knew little about each other; outside of the visual obvious. We cultivate stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. When the "total picture,” is missing stereotypes in many cases allow us to "fill in the blanks."
Yes, I have worked as a nurse and statistically patients are more likely to injure nurses as opposed to nurses injuring patients.

Roles and Leadership

I would say that my leadership style is always changing depending on what situation I am in. In the classroom, I tend to sit back more often than not because I feel that others in the class have more real-life experience than I do in the business world. In my fraternity I am constantly taking leadership positions. I am very well known and have been around for awhile, so people respect my opinion and take what I say seriously. I am usually a different leader depending on what group it is since each situation requires me to act differently. This past weekend I went to Southern California and stayed with my family for a little bit. Even in my family my leadership style changes. When I am with my parents I would say that I always fall right back into the middle son role. But depending on the situation, I can break out of that mold a little bit. My dad was a police officer and doesn't know nearly as much as I do about business, sports, and a variety of other things so I often speak out on more topics now that I have the knowledge.

Power Blogging Topic #6

Power is such a loaded word…Often the word communicates images of something negative or harmful. Yet in a broad and simple expression, power means having the capacity to bring about change. Power can take on many forms, and take place in many places, and can be measured in many ways. It is not as simple as saying; power is who has it and who doesn’t. Examining the strict meaning of power I would say, yes I do have the capacity to bring about change. Yes, I have brought about change. In many ways through self discovery and self development I am seeking to change my leadership style from coercive to participative. I am seeking to create change by developing a working environment which “espirt de corps” is in effect. This kind of power is considered integrative power in which neither force nor trade is going on; instead the organization operates with agreed-upon rules and expectations.
These agreed upon rules or expectations are created in agreement because each member is on board for a common agenda. This kind of integrative power not only relies on action but action in concert.
As we discussed in class powerful looks, poses or dress are superficial at best and in time become transparent revealing a lack of real essence. I have spent too many years of my life watching superficial leaders come and go, I am ready for change and that change can only be guaranteed if I am that change.

Blog Post #9 :A rEaL uPsIDE dOwN DeAl

A rEaL uPsIDE dOwN DeAl
Years ago I remember a patient that I cared for who was diagnosed with the big C, Cancer. She was a rather bright and beautiful graduate student at the University of Wyoming and she had a promising future ahead of her. She was a quick witted sporty intellectual, who had a “can do anything” attitude. Her smile was invigorating and refreshing; no one could look her and not want to return the smile. Her intellectual capacity was many light years ahead of her 20 year old vibrant spirit. If you were to describe her in terms of a color she would be bright eye shocking red. If you were to describe her in terms of a car she would be a sporty Mini Cooper. The only problem was she was diagnosed with Hemangiosarcoma a rare, rapidly growing, highly invasive variety of cancer. It is a blood-fed cancer; meaning, blood vessels grow directly into the tumor and it is typically filled with blood. A frequent cause of death is the rupturing of this tumor, causing the victim to rapidly bleed to death. We all knew that she was not able to leave the hospital alive and irrationally, she oddly was okay with that, almost at peace with that.
The most irrational part of the entire ordeal was how insistent she was on taking her final exams.
She requested that each instructor come to her hospital room with the final exam in tow and allow her the prescribed time to take the exam. The entire staff was uneasy about her request but this was her last dying wish.
We have all put aside what comes natural, what feels comfortable and easy in favor of something which is the exact opposite. As a pessimist I am optimistic that one day my belief in the goodness and wholesomeness of mankind will change. But so far the insidious Christmas time robberies leave me somewhat questioning. We say that we don’t discriminate but we do unintentionally. We have preferences about ourselves, our tribes, our groups, our clubs, our beliefs and our chosen way of life. I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down, at the Fourth Street Café, staring at people whom I believe different from me wondering why they say and do the things that they do.
We irrationally anchor: Ask someone if they believe their sudden weight gain has a direct correlation with the Thanksgiving feast that they just consumed. Why wouldn’t the fact that an excessive caloric intake prior to Thanksgiving come into mind? Ask someone if a lucky charm really has the ability to change individuals luck and they will most likely respond with a yes.
Call this irrational or is it just a rational way of understanding the world.
We irrationally see patterns where none exist: Try to persuade a basketball player, fan, or statistician that there isn't anything to the idea of shooting streak. Try convincing him that it is all random luck. Chances are it won’t be that convincing.
...such "mind bugs" extend to the beliefs and preferences we have about ourselves and others.

Leadership Style

Happily I am able to operate a seasonal bookstore which I am able to close during the last month of November through December. The bookstore is a family owned and operated bookstore whereby I find myself using command-and-control leadership as the primary management style. We began as small operation with less than 200 customers, two years later we serve over 1000 loyal customers. Our survival demanded strict consistency and conformity to customer specifications because we were a new bookstore to a saturated bookseller marketplace.
During our infancy our staff was small and inefficient and it was vital to motivate and instruct our staff to climb up a steep business learning curve in order to remain profitable and efficient. Each employee was taught one simple operational task and not allowed to crossover due to fear of inconsistency and irregularity falling outside of customer requirements. The tasks became so narrow that all workers were adverse to change or transformation even when change meant increased productivity. Because my employees are family members my leadership style changes rarely which at times can become draining.
Although we have grown and our job duties have expanded and grown I still sometimes find myself reverting to the command and control role. I assumed this role because the organization was new and required absolute accountability and strict quality control. Now that we have expanded into new product lines we require product experts who can motivate workers to make independent decisions that will increase creativity and organizational growth.
Despite tough economic conditions we are growing but I fear that our growth will become compromised if we do not become a more team motivated organization. I believe a great new year’s resolution for our business will be to address the real problem of leadership which is the organizational culture.

Another View for Leaders

Leadership is for those who are always looking for challenges and ways to improve each others’ lives. From this principle, I don’t think it is necessarily to take charge and become a leader in every group. Sometimes, being a good follower is also a way of demonstrating your great leadership skills. So, I don’t actually find there is a repeated pattern for me to fall in. However, I believe, if you want to become an excellent leader, you have to diligently spend time to observe things around you in order to make changes. For example, if you work in a company and seeking to become a manager or leaser in the future, you have to spend a lot of time to examine things in details around you and listen to others to complement your lack of experiences and skills. There is no exception for people who seek to become a great leader unless you don’t want to be a good one. In fact, people gained experiences and leadership skills from putting their passion into things they focused. It does not matter which group you are in. What matters is that how much you are willing to take responsibility in your groups instead of simply want to share power in groups.

What influences my role?

I most certainly have different roles in different groups of people. I think my type of involvement in a group depends on two main factors. One is my comfort level with the members of the group. For example, I’m very comfortable with my family members and I give my opinion in most family matters and even try to convince others to follow my decisions. I think I’ve gained enough credibility over the years that I’m not worried to be accused of making a wrong decision. On the contrary, when I attended one of my neighborhood meetings, I met a group of older people who have lived in the neighborhood for many years and I didn’t know many of them. I was not comfortable to take any leadership role and I just participated in the discussions and brought up some concerns and questions.

The second factor that affects my group role is the kind of people in that group. I work more efficiently with people who have certain characteristics compared to others. For instance, at work, I am regularly assigned to different projects with different group members. I have worked with all of my co-workers in different projects and more or less know their characters. So from the beginning of the project, just by looking at the team composition I can predict how successful the project would be. Although many people learn to work with each other over time, I believe certain personalities work with each other and achieve their goals more efficiently. Certainly being a leader in some groups is easier than others. If I gain the leadership role in any of these groups, I try to change my style accordingly. For example, if I have passive or bystander co-workers in my group who are not motivated and need to be pushed, then I have to be more controlling and do more micro management. On the contrary, when dealing with self motivated co-workers, I change my style and try not to control the details, providing only an overall leadership of the project.

Different types of leadership

I suppose the main groups that I interact with are work connections, family, and friends. I interact with my family fairly regularly... I talk to my mom almost every day... and in that immediate family circle, I take on different roles depending on the situation. If we are hosting a party or some family event, I go into assistant party planner mode, letting my mom run the kitchen, etc and helping her get everything done. If I am hosting the event for family, the roles are reversed. I believe this is where my "hosting" gene comes from... my mom and I love to throw parties. When I am assisting my mom, I have noticed that she is good at delegating work, which is something that I need to improve on. When we are not hosting parties and just hanging out, I take on the role of bossy older sister, telling everyone what to do and fighting with my dad about the best way to do things. In these situations, I like to take charge and organize people, which is a lot like my mom again. I think with her years of experience, she has a lot of tips to give me about running a family... and I'd like to hear them :)

In my work life I am definitely not as bossy. I like to be in charge still, but am more open to other people's ideas and suggestions about things. I want to be seen as a hard worker, on top of my projects, and smart at work.. so I try to be as prepared as possible for all meetings I attend and projects I run. It is sometimes difficult for me to lessen my control grip when running an event, however I understand that working relationships are not as forgiving as family, so I can bite my tongue and just go with it... sometimes.

With my friends, again, I am a planner. I love to plan parties, get togethers, outings, whatever! With these types of interactions, I do like to remain very much in control. However I do work with my friends and their ideas if they have an opinion. It is not as hard for me to let go of my control with friends as it is for me in work situations. I think this is because in work, if you mess up, people form opinions of you quickly, and it is difficult to change their minds. With friends, you can mess up, fall down, scream and cry, but they will still be there for you and still believe in you.

It would seem that I fall into the same role in most aspects of my life... and I don't consider that a bad thing. My personality is a controlling, planning one... but one that still wants to be liked and make sure everyone has a good time. I feel that as long as I keep those two aspects balanced, then I will be pretty good :)

Leadership roles

Spending a long holiday weekend with family is fun but also very draining, I guess because you spend a long periods of time with a lot of the same people. I think my main groups that I interact with are family, friends, and work. My leadership style does change with these groups. I notice when I am making decisions with friends I typically step back and let other people make the plans and decisions, and I typically go along with whatever they have planned. I notice the leader in this group is usually the person who has the most connections with the majority of the people in the group. So she typically brings everyone together and coordinates the decisions.
Around family, I am definitely not as passive and usually have a large input in the decision making, coordinating plans, and bringing everyone together. I realized my influence among my family members when I was able to somehow convince everyone it was a good idea to go see Harry Potter the day after Thanksgiving. No one wanted to go because of crowds, traffic, and many other excuses. I was able to come up with all these reasons why we should go and eventually everyone agreed and we ended up having a great time! I think I have gained influence in my family over the years as I have gotten older and everyone is more on equal grounds since we are all adults now.
I suppose at work I am kind of in the middle, sometimes I try to be a leader and sometimes I step back and let other people be the leaders. I also think my leadership style varies based on how I think people perceive me, and sometimes I do or don't act a certain way in order to to avoid changing those perceptions. Like with my family, I don't care if they think I am bossy and try to get them to do things, I’m not shy about voicing my opinions or ideas. But with my friends I try to be a little more sensitive to what other's want to do and not be so picky or come off as controlling. I think work again falls somewhere in the middle, I don’t want to be a pushover but I also don’t want to come off as too domineering and inflexible. The most important thing that people do to stand out as leaders is to influence and persuade others; and I can learn from watching the different angles people take in order to get others to see things their way. I think this could be applied to all my different social circles to chose the appropriate leadership style for each.

Blog Topic 12: Groups and leadership

It is likely that over this long weekend, you are finding yourself interacting with friendship groups and family groups more intensely than you usually do. The holidays and celebrations typically bring people together - which is sometimes good and sometimes bad.

In class, we talked about adjusting your leadership for different kinds of groups - volunteer groups, paid groups, etc. Take this time to reflect on your leadership in the different types of groups of which you are a member (even if you didn't see them all this week). How does your leadership style change? Are you more effective in one group versus another? Do you fall into a pattern such that you are in the same role in all groups? Or, as is typical in family groups, do you find yourself regressing to the same role in the family that you've always played, regardless of other accomplishments? Think about other leaders in these groups. What do they do that is effective and how can you learn from them?

Feedback!

In the feedback that I received, I would say that a few aspects surprised me. I always thought that when leading a group it is important to have high-performance expectations, but the average of others was much lower than I expected. There is that one quote, "always aim for the stars, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." These seems to be true, the higher you set your goals, the higher you will end up even if you do not meet them.

This is an important idea to note. The reason for this could be that people often set intangible goals. Setting a goal that is more easily attained might be more advantageous to actually reaching it. I don't really think that I get authentic feedback in my everyday life too often. Just by looking at these ratings has opened my eyes to a few things that I didn't already know. If I got more feedback more often, I would gain much more leadership skills.

I was also shocked that providing intellectual stimulation isn't too high on others ratings. Of all the ways to motivate people, one would think that stimulating your group would help in moving them to do something. This should definitely be a learning experience for everyone, sometimes the things we think motivate others can actually hinder your group from achieving its goal.

Relieved....

I was relieved to see my results. I definitely want to be liked by people, but at the same time I want to be seen as knowledgeable, reliable, and in control. I try to interact with people in a way so that I am pleasant to talk to / work with, but still convey my intelligence and managerial skills. Sometimes I think I can come off a little too friendly and not be taken seriously. Other times I think I can be seen as a pushover, or someone that you don't need to take seriously. I am glad that I got to see a small cross section of what people think of me...

I was not surprised by any of the results... more interested. In the Influence tactics section, my Pressure and Exchange scores were pretty low, while my Inspirational Appeal was super high. I do not like bartering as a way to get things done, so I was pleased to see that my score for that was low.

I receive feedback, whether I want it or not, on a daily basis from my boyfriend Jon. He has gotten to the point where he tells me point blank how it is and how I am coming across. I think we all know by now that I have "knee-jerk" reactions to things, get offended easily, and do not manage my emotional intelligence well. Well, when I start getting defensive about something or got super offended about something he says, Jon will look me in the eye and say "stop it, you are being irrational." Of course I get all upset all over again.. mostly because I know he is right and I am frustrated with myself that I can't control my emotions better. However this constant stream of feedback has helped me try to calm my emotions at work. If I am going to be a successful manager, I can't get all offended and hold a grudge and dwell if a co worker talks to me funny.. I need to control myself and his constant pointing it out.. though frustrating.. has made me more aware of my reactions and how they can be perceived.

The Feedback Says:

The feedback left me feeling cold, numb, anesthetized, drained and deadened because I recognized that I had “not” been authentically Asher all along. I had been wearing a disguise pretending to be someone I wanted people to believe I was. I traveled the path of least resistance simply because. I displayed a less complex Asher that was easier to palate.


The feedback made me feel as if I were flagged for having “shallow emotions,” meaning my show of warmth, joy, compassion may not have been authentic but aseptically feigned.
My display of emotions served as a cover for my ulterior motives or objectives. How could I feel so outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Truly I was not acting genuine, neither were my promises.
“Was anything surprising to you?” Nothing was really surprising for me because I interpret all feedback as useful. I may certainly digest things differently but none the less, I digest.


The primary framework I will garner from the feedback is its ability to support my learning, my change and my improvement. Darn Skippy, I know I need to learn from this experience and learning will take place by knowledge of how to manage my weaknesses.


It's not having been in the dark house, but having left it, that counts.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Yes, what about my weakness? No matter my strengths I have to manage my weakness that are lurking around in the unfriendly darkness ready to strike at a moment’s notice when I least expect it. The contradiction in feedback scores exposes that deep seated rage, I experience often which is split off and repressed, at its core. I am concerned that I see others around me not as people but as targets and opportunities.
How can the information you received move you towards your leadership goals?
The first game rule is to identify my weaknesses which were pointed out in the feedback.

I identify a weakness as anything that complicates or gets in the way of excellent performance. Taken into totality my largest weakness appears to be transparency. Of the thousand roles that I play much like an actor reading for a movie, I have never found the role of playing Asher interesting enough to stay with it. So the pretender in me is on trial for lacking an authentic persona that is consistent with her values, beliefs and aspirations.


Without the skill of transparency I cannot articulate carefully and clearly my vision; my vision of creativity, resourcefulness and imagination.
Taken literally I need to: Stop faking it and live the life I was born to fulfill. I need to rediscover my core values and return to my authentic self. I need to lock down and regain the passion, excitement, and confidence locked inside of me. I shall get real and leave the old phony behind. I am not auditioning for a new role and that is the life of Asher.

No Feedback No Goals

Receiving feedback is essential and this phenomenon also guides us to the direction where we decide to head to. Without any feedback for your performance, people usually begin to lose their confidence and energy towards their goals. It is just like taking a math exam. When you realize that your teacher (leader) decides to keep the score secretly, you would have some sort of disappointments because you cannot get information about your performance and soon your energy will be drained and depleted. The same principle can be applied to our daily lives. As I working to achieve something great for personal or company, I always seek feedbacks, suggestions, and encouragements from my supervisor so that I can refuel my spirit and energy to step out of my comfort zone and make great things happen. Honest feedback help me understand myself more about the situation and it not only clears out my doubts but also points out the problems I should adjust before I move on. People need feedbacks to reevaluate their performance. Without feedback, we are likely to commit mistakes and fail our goals.

Time for a little self-reflection

There were definitely a few things that surprised me in the feedback. It is really important to recognize how others view you, mostly I think because you do things and repeat certain behaviors you are not always aware of. For example, I always consider myself to be in control of my emotions; however I scored lower on the average ratings of others across the board for emotional intelligence. This really surprised me because I thought this would be one of my strengths. I will have to reevalute myself in this area. I am grateful for the information because I value emotional intelligence, and now that I realize I am not as strong in this category as I thought I know this is an area I can target for improvement. I will definitely work on identifying emotions in others, and also regulating my own emotions. I have been trying to “self-monitor” the last few days to see how I am behaving and paying closer attention to the reactions of others.

In my every day life I would say I actually receive a lot of feedback from a few sources: my sister for one is constantly pointing out things about me and things that I do when I don’t realize. She always starts with “maybe you don’t realize this but….” And then proceeds to tell me her opinions about me and my behavior, what I say and how I say it. This is actually helpful because family knows you best and also doesn’t usually care if the truth hurts your feelings or not. I also get a lot of feedback about my performance at work. Everything I do is reviewed by 2 managers, so my work is constantly being handed back to make changes which is annoying but getting used to your work being criticized can make you more open and less defensive over time.

I think honest feedback is really hard for just about everyone, especially if you are a person who has or at one point had low self-esteem. If you already feel badly about yourself it can be really difficult to get feedback from other people, especially if you have tried to overcome years of low self-esteem.

Blog Topic 11: Seeing ourselves as other see us

Last week, you received feedback on how other people see you in a leadership roles. Was anything surprising to you? You've had a few days to digest the feedback, how can the information you received move you towards your leadership goals? How frequently do you receive authentic feedback in your everyday life? How can acquiring honest feedback help you achieve your goals?

Two points on the TED talk

As I was listening to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly talk, two points were interesting to me. One is that lack of basic resources leads to unhappiness, but increasing the amount of resources doesn’t result in more happiness either. So as long as human’s basic needs are met, the amount of income or moving from a three to four bedroom house does not necessarily make them happier. In other words, people with higher incomes and bigger homes may live more comfortably, but they’re not necessarily happier. The important point is that every person’s basic needs are different from others. In my own experience, when I was living away from my family, I wasn’t very happy. Now that I live close to them, although my material resources haven’t changed much, I’m much happier. So would it be correct if I conclude being close to family is one of my basic needs?!

Another point is the concept of flow. When I looked at the definition of Flow which is “the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity”, I realized there is nothing in life that gives me the state of flow. The closest feeling I can recall is speed running tournaments in my junior high years. It was such a great feeling when I was on the tracks. I just wanted to run forever. I’m curious to know how many people that I know experience the feeling of flow and in what way.

Motivation

Depending on the situation, I feel that there are a lot of things that motivate me. When I think of what motivates me at my job, I would have to say it's mostly money. I work as a server at a restaurant, so my main goal is to make good tips. This, coincidentally, means that I have to provide better service to earn them so it works for both the company and I. When I worked my full time sales job, I was motivated to push the company forward. Making money was great and all, but since it was a small start-up company, I felt personally invested and motivated to see it succeed. I like the feeling of being motivated by something I like better than money. Being personally invested in something and caring about the outcome is the easiest way to have someone do their best job at their task.

I think that what motivates me isn't much different than what motivates others. Everyone is motivated to work towards a goal if it's something they care about. But sometimes, it isn't always that easy to get everyone to want the same final goal. This is when other motivation styles need to be put in place. It is important to take the individual or group that you are trying to motivate and analyze which style would be the most advantageous. Fear is good, but sometimes can cut ties with those you are scaring. All in all, I feel that inspiration is the best form of motivation. Scaring someone or getting angry can get the job done, but may have more negative effects than you would want. Inspiring someone to be motivated gets the job done and probably gets the best outcome.

Intrinsic Motivation

Motivation does play an important role in my daily life. To me, there is a difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. An extrinsic motivation, for example, is like that your manager raises your salary because you have been working hard. As for an intrinsic motivation, you often find out some truths about yourself like you’ve been enjoyed getting involved in what you are doing because you like the environment or because you can help others and make contributions to the world. No doubts, people are likely to be attracted to intrinsic motivations. I that way, when I lost the momentum to work, I can quickly get energy out of my intrinsic motivation repertoire and again become focused and concentrated on what I am working now.

Whenever I got lost under stressful working environment, I like to reframe things with my eyes closed, because sometimes what you see does not truly reflect truths, and mind opened.
Then, I will take a deep reflection on what’s meaningful to me and what should I do to continue pursuing the meaningful things. Luckily this strategy works very well on me and I enjoy doing it whenever I need a break from work and my busy life.

To motivate others, as according to textbook, you need to create an environment of trust and collaboration. Abusing power with negative attitudes towards your followers will bring you and your team with long term damages. As a leader, to know your followers internally is important. Just like you, others like to be lead with intrinsic motivations.

Too Salty

Too Much Salt
Excess sodium in the blood is very serious and can lead to organ failure and death. The condition is called hypernatremia. People who have kidney failure or who are not getting sufficient water will have it. Symptoms usually are noticeable when severe. Symptoms may include: severe sweating, hypothermia, dizziness and lethargy. Danger can occur with too much sodium so too can danger occur with an overzealous amount of motivation. It’s not that complex to get overly excited about a new goal, a new class, a new relationship or even a new project; you start burning the midnight oil and then completely puke out a week or month later. When I think about the number of positions that I have had in my life, 31, I have had to get motivated and then settle into coast mode for survival.
Think about those crazy, exotic, irrational crash diets that you start only to fail a week later. It’s easy to get really enthusiastic about a new goal. It is sort of like a Kid on Halloween who eats a bit too much candy, there can be such a thing as too much motivation. My entire life has been about starting a marathon by sprinting like a demon on drugs the first mile. Call it that competitive spirit, call it spiritual awakening, call it just stupid I call it burning the candle at both ends. Take a walk down the self-help aisle of Barns and Noble and thousands of books get you pumped, revved, gunned, accelerated and ready to go make enormous life altering changes. Although this is a nice idea, it can easily lead to motivation burnout. For me it’s been ready, get set, disappointment. I view motivation globally as achieving as close to possible your life goals. From day one out of the gate it has been about viewing my habits and making small but measurable changes. Sometimes change has been monumental and painful and other times it has been incremental and effortless.
Thinking about the excessive sodium I think about the excessive speed at which I have attacked life and living. My motivation has been almost drug induced at times; my personality and zest to do and conquer can almost take on a speed freakish nature. I have taken 21 academic units and worked full-time while raising three children. I have lost 100 pounds in less than 185days. I have finished a finance exam while in active labor. I have run a five mile race while in active labor. I have broken both my arms trying to lift weights greater than my ability. I think you get the point! At some point my need for speed and prove that I am motivated has caused burnout.
I have come to the understanding that fundamentally I need to have more value for what constitutes meaning for me! Working hard had not worked for me, now I need to work passionately. Essentially it means arriving at a clear understanding of my values and sacrificing, surrendering or forfeiting only for ‘that’ which meets those values and tenets. Clarifying my values will need to come from personal reflection and deep self-analysis. It shall come from deconstruction of my past so that I am able to construct my future. No longer shall I operate on the tenets of motivation for motivation sake but fundamentally I will only become motivated for those things I deem valuable and serviceable to the ecclesiastical of Asher.

The better motivation...

I found last week’s class interesting because I actually never knew the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I had never heard of those concepts before, but it actually makes a lot of sense. I could never understand why people would live their lives as struggling artists or pursuing something that was never going to make them a lot of money; but it is because they are intrinsically motivated and do not care as much about external motivations. After learning the difference, I realized I am extrinsically motivated. I do consider myself a motivated person but I am always pushing myself for some outside reward. I’m always just focused on what the end result will bring: a promotion, a raise, recognition. I suppose that is a shallow way to be, I guess because I don’t feel like what I do really makes a difference.

I think the better motivation is intrinsic motivation. When people are intrinsically motivated the results and rewards are greater. People want to feel like they are making a difference, that their work is important and has some meaning. It is a terrible feeling to feel like your work means nothing to an organization and you never see results of your hard work. But how do you create intrinsic motivation in a corporate, non-creative setting when ideas are constantly ignored or shot-down by management? It is easier for companies like Google or Apple to create intrinsic motivation in their employees, but what about other businesses that do not necessarily need or want ideas from employees? These situations are hard to create motivation.

I think as a manager it is essential to create intrinsic motivation: people are happier, they do better quality work, and have higher morale. People need to understand what they are contributing and why. If someone just feels like they are in a grind and doesn’t care about their work, they could be motivated by having a clear understanding on how and why their job is important. I would say the majority of people don’t understand what impact they personally have on the company, and they are unable to see the big picture. Although I suppose some people just don’t really care either way; I don’t think you can motivate those who do not want to be motivated…..any ideas?

Blog Topic 10: Motivation

In retrospect, our discussion of motivation in class went in two directions: how to motivate others and how to motivate oneself. The two aren't necessarily unrelated, but it is helpful to consider them separately before combining them. The videos below concern self-motivation, but could also be applied to understanding your followers.

What do you think motivates you? Are there times when you are just trying to get by and are there times when you are striving something really great? When do you experience each kind of feeling? Which feeling are your more comfortable with?

Having considered what motivates you, think about how you might motivate others. Can you shift gears between different styles and types of motivation when working with your followers? Can you use fear? Can you use anger? Can you use inspiration? How can you improve your motivational repertoire?

Cutural Misconceptions

One point I'd like to mention is that the culture of a certain country is sometimes perceived mistakenly by the outside world due to confusion with the religious rituals of the dominant minority or the imposing belief system of the country’s government. For example, in the short questionnaire that we had last Wednesday, I was surprised to see the claim that in Iran, it’s offensive to eat with your left hand. I was born and raised in Iran for 16 years and had never heard of this. I asked some Iranian friends and families, and it turned out I’m not the only one who was suprised by this news. I later discovered not eating with your left hand is an Islamic practice which is observed in some Arabic countries.

I experience this kind of misperception about my countrymen almost every day. Iran is run by a group of Islamist extremists and is known to be an Islamic country. So although Iranians have distinct Persian traditions and a rich culture, it’s natural for the outside world to perceive Iranians as strict Muslems who strictly follow Islamic laws, although for the large number of the population this is not true.

Cultural Miscommunication

There are many things that will stymie our communication with people who has different backgrounds, cultures, and values from us. I am a foreign student, and I have suffered through really tough time to overcome the culture barrier since the first day I came to the States. As a matter of fact, for people who come from Asia usually found their culture shocks while interacting with people who speak different languages. I used to work with an Indian classmate, and we sometimes had some contradictions in minds and communications. I always try to take a soft way to accommodate things and provide him with big frame to accomplish projects. However, my partner is more like an aggressive and detail oriented person. He likes to make things complicated with elaborated labored work to make the project look nice regardless of the deadline of the project. We do have some hard time in negotiating on the issue of whether to finish the project on time or spend extra time to make the late turned in project look nice. I think my logical reasoning is not communicated efficiently enough for him to understand my purpose. I should improve my communication skill by repeating and explaining my concepts and purposes to him and reaching agreements that will do us both good.

Cultural Communication Styles

I have definitely had experiences with those of other cultures that maybe didn’t go as well as they should, and I think it can attributed to different backgrounds, cultures, and family of origins. My family heritage is European but I am third generation so basically consider myself just “American”. I don’t really have a culture of origin that I identify with, so I think when I meet people that do, some I don’t really understand them or I can see areas that we differ.

I think communication can be a challenge also, not just a language barrier but also the ways in which people communicate. For example, I had a neighbor who was from India, and he always needed to come over to borrow something or tell us something. But when he would be at the door, before saying why he was really there he would always start with small talk and chit-chat asking questions about how we were. [I have been told by another person from India that this is a cultural thing, that is it polite to start off this way and take time to get to the point, but I could be wrong, this is just my experience.] So to me I saw him as being annoying and wasting my time, he didn’t seem to notice or care that he was taking a long time to get the point. I personally didn’t care if he asked me how I was, I just wanted him to tell me what he needed! So he probably thought I was being rude by being impatient, and I thought he was being rude. In America we value our time, and although both cultures may have shared “neighbor” values, the approach is much different.

I’ve never lived anywhere else to be able to compare other cultures. So I think travel is very important, especially for Americans because yo have the opportunity to live differently for a few days or weeks, and see what other lifestyles can be like, and learn about other cultures.

Mis-meetings of the minds

My parents are Scottish... like real kilt wearing, hard to understand, my cousin and godfather play the bagpipes kind of Scottish. My mother raised my brothers and I as she was raised, and it wasn't really until college, when I met people from all different walks of life, that I realized how differently people acted in situations.

The first ever realization that my up-bringing might be different than another persons was at a dinner party. I was taught the "proper" way to use a knife and fork, and that is what I thought everyone did. However, the person sitting directly across from me ate VERY differently than I did. He stabbed his meat with his fork in full-fist grip and proceeded to saw the meat, scratching his knife repeatedly on the plate. Then, once the piece was cut, he *gasp* changed his fork from his left hand to his right hand, and ate the piece. My first thought: heathen. It was at that point that I began to notice things that I was taught to do in social situations that not everyone did.. at first I was put off by the lack of "manners" that people had, but eventually I realized that some people did not act the same way I did because of their up bringing, not because they were rude.

I still do the things that my mother taught me.... if no one is talking in a social circle, one must find something... ANYTHING to start a conversation about.. one must sit with her ankles crossed under the table, not legs crossed, in polite circles... one must always have biscuits (cookies) and some form of refreshment when a guest comes to call.. etc etc... however my version of things is tamer than hers (don't tell my mom that though!)

When I do have cultural clashes with people, I still get put off.. however since the realization at the dinner party, I do not hold it against people. I find other cultures interesting, and try my best to take note of customs and try to appropriately incorporate them into interactions. However, I am sure that somewhere along the road, someone has thought my constant talking through silences was pretty annoying..

Misscommunicating

In many of my group projects I feel like there is always a "mismeeting" of minds. Recently, I had a project in one of my classes where my assumptions clashed with one of my group members. I always try to do my best in group projects to get an A, because other than learning that is my ultimate goal. It was very apparent that in this case, he had a different route he wanted to take to get there. He had this preconceived notion that if we did whatever we wanted, as long as we thought it was what we should do, the teacher would be pleased. I, however, believed that we should use the teachers guidelines to give us the best chance of getting an A.

I felt like he was making things too complicated, he felt that I was simplifying things too much. I'm not sure what I can say about the geography of my mind that made this interaction go sour, but I can say a lot about his. Sometimes the answer isn't always something that takes a lot of brain power and thinking. The problem we had was what to use as our mission statement for our marketing plan. There is all sorts of mission statements out there. Some are really specific, some are complex and long. I truly felt that we needed to make ours simple and easy to understand (like the teacher said). He wanted to elaborate and make it catchy and funny.

I think the critical disagreement we had was about what the teacher would think. I thought logically, do what the teacher says and do it well and we will get an A. He thought more than that, do kind of what the teacher says but attempt to go above and beyond and see what happens.

.....we made a simple one and got an A

Blog Topic 9: Geography of Thought

Last week, we talked about rationality and irrationality. I asked you how you might use "irrational" thinking as a leader and still manage and create change and progress towards goals. This week, we talked about different ways of thinking - that cognitive processes are not universal but may also be affected by culture. So, now leaders not only have to deal with appearing irrational, but also have to deal with ways of thought (mind bugs) that may vary by country, ethnicity, religion, etc. This could easily be overwhelming. But, we've sought to make this manageable by describing the principals that underlie cultures (Hofstede's 5 characteristics), and the principals that underlie rationality.

In this post, think back to a time when you have had interactions where you experienced a "(mis)meeting of the minds." Have you had experiences which, in retrospect, didn't go well because you had different assumptions about causality or use of logic than your interaction partner? What is the geography of your thought and can how does it affect you in your interactions with others? What are the elements of your cultural mindset?

Predictably Irrational

Predictably irrational is such an awesome phrase. When I think about some of the decisions I make in my life, there is absolutely NO explanation why. I have found that explaining my weird decisions is probably a waste of breath. I am led to make jerk decisions about certain things for whatever reason, and defending my irrational ones is often impossible.

Presenting information in a certain way can definitely affect someone's decision. I actually came upon this the other day, but not in a business sense. There is this joke (it's not that funny), that goes like this.

Q: What side are a rhinoceros' horns on?
A: The outside

That joke is only funny if they have right or left in mind. When I told it however, I had just been talking about how cold it is outside and how warm it is inside. The person looked at me like I was stupid and replied "outside." Why would I tell that joke when I gave away the punchline? I have no idea. What's more important is the business/leadership lesson I should learn from it. If I can foreshadow the answer to my question before I ask it, the other person would be more comfortable with accepting it themselves.

First off, I would like to say how much I enjoyed the book. It was really interesting to think about how and why people make decisions. In describing this book to people, more often than not the person I am talking to get this "oooooooooooooooooohh..." look in their eye when I talk about some of the concepts in the book.

lately, I have seen "anchoring" all over the place. It's like people just don't know what to think about anything unless there is a reference point! I know they are everywhere, and I know they are being used on me through commercials and other marketing strategies.. but even though I know exactly what they are doing, I still get caught up in it. I don't think that I will be able to change my ways in regards to anchoring.. it is just too ingrained in me.

Thinking about predictably irrational...

I think the concept of predictably irrational is a really difficult one and poses some serious challenges for leaders. It is challenging to work with people and influence them to see things your way when irrationality comes into play.

I suppose the best way to explain your decision process is to explain in detail but also acknowledge that it may come off as irrational: “I know this doesn’t make sense but…” or “I know we are inclined to do this one way but let me explain why it should be done another way”. The concept of predictably irrational decision making can be pretty uncomfortable for people in regards to decision making because you are dealing with rationality vs instincts.

The best example I can think of that has happened to me, when I have been influenced by a decision based on the way the information was presented, is probably working Saturdays. My company is very big on working weekends and overtime. I never thought that I would be a person to work weekends. I always thought the weekend is for me, and nothing is more important than having that time to myself. I always thought if I had a job that required weekends I would refuse. But somehow I don’t see it as being that bad anymore, and I know it goes against my better judgment but I suppose my “decision” to work weekends has to do with how the information is presented. Having deadlines, having other co-workers also work weekends, meetings where bosses are always saying that working weekends are “encouraged”. It is totally wrong in my belief and yet somehow I am ok with it and find myself being the weekend-cheerleader and trying to tell my co-workers all the reasons why it’s a good idea. I suppose though in this case working weekends may be rational to some and irrational to others.

Blog Topic: Predictably Irrational

We are continuing our discussion of the human brain with last week's topic of irrationality. These findings suggest that humans are not rational, but are still predictable. This idea has two implications for you as a leader. First, people tend to expect leaders to be rational, to obey certain laws of physics, so to speak, yet, they themselves may act in ways that are not rational. This presents leaders with a conundrum: when you know your actions and decisions make sense, in the predictably irrational sense, but that they do not make sense in the traditionally rational sense, what do you do? How do you explain your decisions? How to defend them?

The second implication has to do with followers and their decision-making strategies. Following on the heels of our discussion of social influence, it seems that you could present information in ways to influence decision-making. Can you think of specific times that this has been done to you, or that, if you had known about it, you'd have changed how you presented information prior to a decision-making situation?

Mind Bugs

I found an interesting video clip similar to what we had in class, showing the set of a scene completely changed, without the viewer noticing anything! Here’s the link to the clip: http://www.dothetest.co.uk/whodunnit.html

In respect to the concept of mind bugs, I’m really interested to know how our minds work. As I was looking for some examples of popular misconceptions, I came across an interesting book by the same title, “Mind Bugs”, by Kurt Vanlehn. It says when children acquire arithmetic skills, they often develop "bugs" - small, local misconceptions that cause systematic errors. The book explores how mathematics students acquire procedural skills in instructional settings, focusing in particular on procedural misconceptions and what they reveal about the learning process. I wonder if it’s the same about other forms of misconceptions. For example in the video clip I mentioned above, how many people would actually notice the changes? How is it that their mind works differently than others? Did they have a different learning process as the book explains about mathematical misconception?

I certainly don’t like people to have misconceptions about me, but for some who are more important to me, I actively try to show them my true self. For others I do not pay much attention, and let time resolve any misconceptions

I remember when I started my first banking job as a teller, I was so nervous about doing everything correctly, I wouldn’t talk to my co-workers about non-job related subjects. My co-workers had the false impression that this is because of my arrogance and not caring about their social lives. Every move and every word from me was conceived in a completely different manner than what I meant. I didn’t think I could ever benefit from their friendship, but time rectified their misconceptions, and we have become close friends to this day.

Perception and Mind Bugs

I really liked class on Wednesday. I would probably say that the one thing I say to everyone is "perception is everything." When I was growing up my mom hammered it into our heads that perception is more real than reality, and the mind bugs we learned about in class go along with this. I have always known that if someone perceives something to be real, then it will be real regardless of how crazy it is. I would say that my own perceptions lead me astray all the time. The picture of the tables is the simplest example of this. Even though he went up and measured both sides of the table, I still thought that they were different. If I have strong perceptions on anything, it would have to be on people. No one wants to believe everything they hear, but the perceptions I develop on people based on gossip always make me paint them a certain way.

Perceptions have definitely affected me in a negative way as well. I have met people who, after talking to me for a few minutes, admitted to thinking I had a different kind of personality based on what they heard. Kind of makes you wonder just how important first impressions are. It's weird to me how these perceptions can be very hard to change. I know that those two tables are the same, but I still can't help but to think that they are different in some way. This is disheartening because if someone perceives me to be a certain way, no matter what I do they could still have that opinion of me even after getting to know me.

Mind Bugs

The activities, pictures and examples provides for the last class was amazingly surprising to me. I did not realize the problem of mind bugs is everywhere in our daily lives. People often believe what they see and this behavior sometimes gets us trapped by our mind bugs. From the book, irrational predictability, I notice that our mind bugs are often come from our past experiences. As a matter of fact, our past experiences send signal to our minds, and our mind convert the signal and store permanently somewhere in our brain. So, next time, when we encounter the same or similar experience, our brain will automatically command us to do the same thing over and over again in our future. The perceptions from past experiences are deeply ingrained in our minds once we make the first decision, behavior, or action. These mind bugs are really powerful and hard to get rid off unless we take a serious internal reflection and some analytical experiments to clarify and restart our believe system.

There is an example I like to mention regarding to my erroneous misconceptions. During my college life, I always drink my roommates’ milk without asking because in my mind I was thinking every thing in the refrigerator should be shared among roommates. This misconception was developed since my childhood when I was living at home. So, one day my roommate came to me and told me stop taking advantages from him. I was shocked and did not realize how bad things became. Then, I tried to examine all the details and did internal self reflection about my past experiences. I realized that I have to stop doing this misbehaviors and start respecting other people’s properties. We have to view things from other angles to solve this puzzle.

Perceptions and Misperceptions

In class we talked about how mind bugs can alter our focus and lead us down the wrong path. We also realized that sometimes we use these mind bugs to our own advantage (such as when crafting our 2 truths and a lie) and sometimes these mind bugs led to errors. Did anything covered in class surprise you?

I found the mind bugs very interesting especially the picture of the two tables that were the same size. A lot of people still didn’t believe it even after someone measured the tables, and to be honest they still did not look the same size to me even though they were measured equally. I also though the card trick video was pretty crazy how all those things changed in the background while the trick was going on and I didn’t even notice one bit. After witnessing these mind bugs my perceptions have changed in that I have increased my doubts about my senses. I think it is human nature to see something a certain way and believe it is true. Even when someone tells you things are different, it is very hard to change your perceptions.

I definitely think my perceptions have led me astray in my life from time to time. I think sometimes I see people as certain way, and even over time if their behaviors demonstrate otherwise, it is still hard to change those initial perceptions and keep ignoring the signs. This is important I think as I go through life and meet new and more people. When you meet someone new, you really do not know who they are. They may say things about themselves, but how do you know any of it is actually true? I suppose I have become more wary and cynical of people after being led astray by my perceptions of them.

An example of when my perceptions have been harmful is when I had a co-worker who I thought was my friend, and I had told her about some personal strife I had been going through. During this period I had made some mistakes at work and she basically went to my boss and pointed out the mistakes I was making. I would not have done this to a friend, I would have backed her up and supported her and tried to help correct the mistakes without going and telling our boss. This was a hard but I guess important lesson to learn.

When people have misperceptions of me, I deal with it by ignoring it as much as possible. I hate feeling like I have to defend and explain myself to people who have misjudged me. It’s annoying and makes a person feel frustrated. You cannot control how people perceive you, so I think it is best to be aware that what you say and do will be judged by others, but then try to ignore it and move on.

I am still thinking about the tables and I still don’t believe they are the same size!

Perceptions... quiet troublemakers

Unfortunately, I missed class last Wednesday due to illness (no one eat the Chinese chicken salad from the SJSU student center..) however I did find the reading "Framing and Negotiation" very interesting. Many of the ideas presented in the article reminded me of a chapter in our book about the idea of "anchoring".

At work, I like to be knowledgeable and take charge of situations where I am comfortable. Though I work with mostly women, the members of our board are mostly older men. Often I find that when I present a progress report or idea to this group of older gentlemen, I am asked many, often redundant questions. When my older male supervisor presents his reports and ideas, he is met more receptively and with approval. What I believe is happening here is because I am younger (not going to go into male vs. female..), then the board members believe that I lack experience, and are more likely to scrutinize my ideas and reports. I do not believe they are being malicious in this scrutiny, however I do believe that they perceive me as a less experienced person who needs more guidance than my boss.

Dealing with this (perceived) perception of my, I find myself trying harder and re analyzing my reports, trying to prepare myself for anything they might throw at me. I try to prove that even though I am "young", that I still have expertise in the area I am assigned and try to gain their trust and support.

I really don't like for people to have misconceptions of me.. it's a little neurotic, but I am not happy if someone does not like me. Once I find out what the misconceptions are, I make a conscious effort to change their mind. I adapt the way I act around the person until I either am satisfied that their mind is changed, or I decide that it is useless. I know this attitude is not the healthiest, why should I care if someone has a misconception about me or does not like me? I don't know why I care, but I really do...

Blog Topic 7: Perceptions

In class we talked about how mind bugs can alter our focus and lead us down the wrong path. We also realized that sometimes we use these mind bugs to our own advantage (such as when crafting our 2 truths and a lie) and sometimes these mind bugs led to errors. Did anything covered in class surprise you? How does these insights into human perceptual processes change your views of your own behavior, past and present? Have there been times in your life when your perceptions have led you astray? Or times when others perceptions of you have been erroneous and perhaps harmful to you? How do you deal with other's misperceptions of you? Do you still think those two tables did not have the same surface area?

Pa pa pa pa pa pa power (Old Spice Anyone?)

I suppose that in certain situations, I do view myself as a powerful person. In the classroom, I am more focused on learning and less likely to step into a leadership role but in other aspects of my life I have a lot of influence on people. I am in the Greek system at San Jose State, and I feel like I have a lot of influence and power among the members of my fraternity and others. I have held many leadership positions in my fraternity, and my "brothers" respect my abilities to create a plan and execute it.

Motivation is a big part of any of the jobs I have done. One that stands out in my mind is our annual philanthropy called "Derby Days" that I was in charge of for 2 years. Motivating a fraternity and 7 sororities to fundraise money to donate to Huntsman Cancer Institute is something that can only be done by someone who can empower others to feel the need to participate. I realized that I had the power to get people to do what I want by using the friendships I had cultivated to my advantage. Selecting captains was important, so I chose my friends who were motivated to help me because I had helped them in the past.

I think that in a business setting I could so a similar job with any task I am given. Personal relationships and first impressions are crucial to gaining power for me. If a coworker feels obligated to help me because they like me, I've helped them out in the past, or I have laid out the reasons why it needs to be done in a way that they understand then I will have the upper hand. I do believe that I have a lot of room for improvement however. I feel that in situations where I do not know anyone, it is hard for me to get someone to do something for me. This situation will definitely present itself over and over again so I need to figure out a way to handle it.

Power

There is a great phrase from the movie Spider Man, “Great Power Comes from Great Responsibility.” Great leaders have potentials and skills to influence and empower others by properly showing them the vision of the future, taking actions to challenge current process, walking the talk...etc because they think they have responsibility to improve the world. Great leaders care a lot about other people’s feelings and thoughts and that is what makes them so powerful and attractive. However, I am still at the immature stage of developing leadership and I certainly have a lot to learn towards my leadership career. By taking this leadership class, I get a better sense of my internal power and the confidence to challenge current process to become a great leader. I would like to keep exploring my heart and find out more of myself by practicing, reading, and taking drills. I would like to know and learn the secrets to motivate peopel's energy level with my influence of power.

Power Pusher

I sometimes think of myself as a powerful person, it does depend a lot on the situation. Jacqueline mentioned the notion of more experience makes her feel more powerful, and I feel the same way. If I have experience, then I feel more powerful. Even if I am working with people with twice as much experience as I, as long as I can refer back to a relate able experience that I have had, I feel confident and therefore powerful. I like to think that I empower others when I talk to them... I have always been kind of a "mom" figure to my friends, making sure everyone knows where to go, what to bring, has a ride, has a ride home, has a good time, etc etc. and I am always there to talk about problems. Now those things may not make everyone feel powerful or empowering, but taking control of a situation and making sure things go well does make me feel powerful.

I really liked the discussion about power poses that we had in class last week. The day after, I had a job interview with a Director, and he took one of the power positions ( leaning back in his chair, etc). I immediately took note of how I was sitting and though I did not try and "out do" his power position, I made sure that I did not take on a "weak" position. As I come closer to graduation, I would like to develop my ability to lead people by my personality and also by my experience. To develop these goals, I believe that I will have to become more attune to how people I am managing/leading respond to different personalities, and perhaps adjust accordingly. Also, I think that if I learn from every experience I have: what went right, what went wrong, what could I have done better, then I will be able to lead with my experience as well as by example.

Cultivating Power

I think that the older I get and the more established I become with my career and goals I think I see myself as more powerful. For me, power comes from confidence and confidence has come from completing certain goals I had set out for myself. I definitely can be someone who empowers others. I try to be enthusiastic and encouraging when I see people feeling down and discouraged. One thing that I have learned in this program that has helped me to feel empowered and is to think very carefully about what I am trying to say, and to speak more slowly and confidently. This is something I have tried to work on and I think doing so I have become more confident which is a foundation for power. I haven’t really thought much about what kind of power I would like to cultivate. I guess my goal is to be taken more seriously especially at work. I am the youngest person at my office location which has its benefits for certain skills but I also have the least amount of experience. Someday I would like to be a manager so I definitely need to increase my feelings and thoughts about power. One thing I thought was interesting that was discussed during lecture was how thinking about a time in your life when you were powerful before being faced with a situation makes you feel more powerful. I think this is a helpful exercise to keep in mind and I am going to use this as one of my tools for cultivating my own power.

Blogging Topic 6: Power

Do you think about yourself as a powerful person? Do you think of yourself as someone who empowers others? We talked about how to be powerful, how to look powerful, and how to exercise power over the past few weeks...and many of you will be graduating in a couple of months...what kind of power do you feel ready to exert and what kinds of power would you like to cultivate? How are going you to meet these power goals?

Negotiation

In the negotiation exercise, I feel that I did exceptionally well. I scored in the top 5 of those who had the same role as me. I was actually pretty surprised, Karen is an excellent negotiator and even though I didn't show it, it felt uneasy not knowing what she had on her paper. I know that I had to judge the importance of each area by how hard she pushed, her body language, and her tone. I made it a point to be more lenient on things that were not important to me, but make it seem like I was giving up a lot. This made it much easier to be more pushy when it came to what I wanted. When she made up some story about where she lived, and how it would affect her in the moving expense area, I countered with an equally elaborate made up response.

I didn't know Karen at all, so I can't say that I had any preconceived notions about how she would attempt to influence the negotiation. I had very little time to decide what she was like and how she was going to act. I must say that even on the walk out of the classroom, I began talking to her to see what I could do to exploit her weaknesses (not in a mean way). I feel like this is my general approach to many things in my life. I definitely understand the importance of knowing your opponent, because if you know everything about them while maintaining some sort of mystery about yourself, you will always have the upper hand. I was definitely satisfied with my performance. When we were done negotiating I let her in on some of the tactics that I had used. I think she was a bit surprised on how deceptive I was. I carefully chose the areas I would emphasize and the ones I would make to seem as unimportant in order to gain an advantage.

The main thing that I learned from this is no matter what tactic I used, I was most happy that in the end we were both pleased with the negotiation. Although it may seem like I was being deceptive to get my own way, I definitely made her feel like she was a winner as well. In a business setting it should always be both parties that walk away feeling good. If one leaves with a bitter taste in their mouth, it surely is the start to a shaky relationship.

Get Ready to Rumble

Negotiation involves three simple but achievable basic elements: process, behavior and substance. (Lewicki, Barry, and Saunders) The process refers to how the parties negotiate: the background of the negotiations, the parties to the negotiations, the strategies used by the parties, and the arrangement and stages in which all of these acts play out. Behavior refers to the unique relationships among these parties, the communication between them and the styles they adopt or do not adopt. The substance refers to what the parties negotiate over: the agenda, the issues, the interests. Our instructor skillful provided the agenda or interest and matched us in a unique situation with a partner we may not otherwise have chosen.
From the inception my partner acted as a skilled negotiator who tried a tactic of hypnosis and leaped into a presentation of “beating around the bush.” I recognized her approach because typically it is used on males coined the “cherry pick.” When the instructor handed my partner a private note I realized that the negotiations would slide into a disingenuous salami tactic and it did exactly that. I knew (by way of the note) that my partner did not have a better offer (by no means) and possibly the note poisoned and infected my ability to be fair and rational. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that “cooperation” is the best policy but it is hard to change pre-wired conditioning that sets up a scenario that it is about win or lose.
Emotionally I have been conditioned to believe that I am always on the losing end of a relationship so I must take before I am taken from. I am driven by paranoia and not science. Typically I feel that most negotiations are neither “clean” nor transparent. It is my gut feeling that something is always left under the table.
The exercise was a fruitful one in that I was able to get a sense of some of my most primal touch points that trigger unpleasant feelings. Routinely I glaze over those sensitive issues that touch off emotional underpinnings but this exercise was eye opening. I was forced to stop and evaluate and possibly diffuse some of those challenges that I have with negotiati

Not tough enough

I knew that I was not being tough enough in the negotiation, and I think it came from who I was partnered with. Usually I have no problem acting and role playing, but for some reason, when I was partnered with this guy, I couldn't do it. I think I let his attitude towards the game effect me to the point where my own performance suffered. I didn't weave any interesting stories.. it was simply an exchange of :"If I give you this, I want this". I feel that I really missed out on the benefits of the game because of this.

I think I scored reasonably compared to the rest of the class, perhaps on the lower side, but still respectable. I had met my partner once before on the first day of class, and knew that his attitude towards these kind of exercises was less than enthusiastic.. therefore my preconceived notions about him did effect my performance in that I felt that if I tried to role play and use tactics such as persuasion by personal stories, etc, that the actions would not be reciprocated and I would feel foolish for trying to engage.

My performance, or lack thereof, does reflect in to my regular life. I am easily influenced by other people's lack of enthusiasm, and it can lead me to be less enthusiastic about tasks. I also have a fear of looking foolish or acting the fool in front of people. This is more of a self confidence issue, one that I am taking steps to improve. My lack of performance disappointed me. I would think that at a graduate level, I would stop being influenced by my classmates' attitudes. However, I was, and as a result, I believe that I missed out on a valuable exercise.