Being one of the non-new persons in the Blind Square exercise, it was interesting for me to find out how we can achieve the goal this time with twice as many people as last time. In the beginning, many non-new persons were silent, maybe because they wanted others to have the opportunity to challenge different ideas. During the exercise, as I was following the instructions, I was trying to compare the strength and weaknesses of this new group with the last one. Then I realized what worked last time may not be applicable this time, since the setting and the participants are different. I believe people were not motivated enough to offer constructive ideas and participate in the exercise. Competition could be a good motivator. If we were divided into two groups and both were given the same task with the same time limitations, both new and non-new members would have been more motivated to accomplish the task successfully in less time.
My vision of a leader is someone who others choose to follow. Leaders should provide inspiration and establish an environment of continuous improvement. According to my vision of a leader, I probably did not contribute enough to the exercise, but I believe as MBA students we are also attending classes to learn, gain experience and apply the learned skills to our jobs. Being flexible by continuous learning and education is one of my core values. I learn a lot by observing others’ behaviors in different situations. During the exercise, as I was listening to all the people around me, I was trying to predict which advices are constructive and which ones are going to deviate us from our goal. As I was trying to differentiate strong and weak leadership skills, I could hear potential good ideas that no one followed, and I wondered if the originator of the idea could draw more attention if he/she had expressed it differently.
Negaar I really like the issue you brought up about competition as a motivator. It’s true during the blind square I mean we had motivation which was to finish but there really was no sense of urgency. We didn’t have a time limit and it seemed like people were not really in a rush to collaborate and solve the problem. Not having a time limit made the majority of the people “check out” and not care about what was going on. It would definitely be interesting if, after we had finished the first square, we were divided into 2 groups and had a time limit on how long we could take. Most people respond to competition even if there is no reward at the end other than to be the winner. I think we certainly would have finished faster, and had more active and effective participation, and probably even more leaders would have emerged. Great idea!
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