Today Kirk Weisler spoke to us on Team Dynamics. I learned a lot from him and actually was entertained the entire class by what he had to say. I learned that I am a student of life- and I should always be looking for ways to become a better leader. The best lesson I took out of this presentation is that I need to be real and genuine. I love to be myself because I am a really happy person and love to smile and I think that makes other people happy too. It was great to hear from Mr. Weisle...
Today in class we had to get into groups and pretend we were in the desert stranded after a plane crash. We had 15 items that we had to rank in order of importance individually, then as a team. It really showed me what leadership and team were because when I did this exercise individually my score was TWO TIMES the amount we got as a team. (The point was to have it as low as possible.) Our team leader appointed the person with the most outdoor skills (brandon's an eagle scout!) and he we...
Today in class we watched a series of video clips on leadership roles and how upper management deals with their employees. There was one on a sausage factory, a Harley Davidson plant, and a school principal. All very different but yet still require important leadership roles in each of them. The people in these videos were extraordinary people who were no different than you and I but had the skills and training that turned them into good leaders. It's amazing what a little bit of leadersh...
Today in class we got into our groups and did an exercise about getting lost in the desert after surviving a plane crash. Our task was to figure out which of the 15 items listed was of the most and least importance, in numerical order. First we had to work on it individually. I think I had the highest individual score and it's pretty obvious I might not survive too long in the desert if everyone was relying on me to save them. That's kinda scary. Who would've thought a mirror would come ...
There are certain skills that a successful business should use to add value and customer retention to their business. I learned from the in-class video over De-Mar (the heating and cooling company) that you must have clear and believeable values and also be able to make a customer, not just a sale. I know that the customer is always right and you should do your best to make them happy. Another important aspect for a profitable business is to makes leaders, not just employees. You must als...
Lecture today was all about listening and the effect is has on communication. I never realized how important listening can be in an organization or group. If one person isn't paying attention, or hearing everything clearly, it can effect the whole group. Dr. Feinberg stated, "We have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason; because listening is twice as important as talking!! I had never actually pondered about listening until after class. When we did the exercise where we had to draw the square...
Many people wonder why employees do the jobs that they do? There is a list of the ten top motivators when people consider jobs. They are: #1. Money #6. Advancement #2. Recognition #7. Freedom #3. Time off #8. Personal Growth #4. Piece of the action #9. Fun #5. Favorable Work #10. Prizes While reviewing these I started to wonder who they interviewed to get these statistics. The reason is, I think mine w...
There are five easy steps to leadership according to Dr. Feinberg. They all make sense to me, like most of the shit he says. (Even though I hate to admit it.) He says that all we need to do is tell our team members what we expect out of them, make sure its 'doable,' reward them, give them feedback, reward them again when the task is completed. I'd have to say that this is a fairly good philosophy. A team member is going to be more receptive and understand better if you tell them EXACTLY ...
It's a hard question to know what, when, and whom needs delegation. Dr. Feinberg says we should search for someone powerful and ask them what you can take off of their plate. If a leader could never delegate, he would have so much to take care of that he would never even be able to sleep. Granting responsibility to someone can also let people learn from you. I could also minimize my habit to procrastinate so badly. Dr. Feinberg suggested some good tips that might help if I can acutally l...
We learned a few different lessons during today's lecture. We watched a commerical on the impact that cheering has on people. I never realized how much difference a little bit of encouragement can do to an organization. I started thinking about it and it's really true though. For example, at a basketball game, when a team comes back and ties up the game, their fans all start cheering and it motivates them to keep puching and work harder to win. If there was no cheering, the team would pr...
Today in class Dr. Feinberg first discussed the our first memos and what he expects from them. Supposedly, some people didn't know just exactly what the task for our assignment was. He made a good point: would you want someone in your group that didn't know what the task was? Obviously the answer is no but at least with this task it didn't affect anyone else's grades but our own. In a real life task I'm sure that I wouldn't want anyone in my group who didn't know what was going on though....
309 was fairly entertaining tonight! I can't think of any other time I have ever been asked, "What would you want someone to say at your funeral if you died?" At first I thought, "How morbid!!" But it's a really good question. What do your closest friends and family members think about you? What do your teachers think of you? When Dr. Feinberg told us to get in contact with a person who made a signifcant effect on our life, I instantly thought of one person: my high school basketball co...
Today's lecture was about cohesiveness and being able to handle success and failure at the same time. I learned a lot today from Dr. Feinberg because I had never really considered that being nice to everyone in life no matter how you felt about them would pay off. But today I realized that, hey, someday they could be my boss!! I feel that our group has already created a great level of cohesiveness by doing the tower project and having many meetings already. All 20 of the members seem to w...
I love the way Feinberg incorporates the humorous clips into class. Not only do I get to laugh, it keeps me from passing out for an hour and 15 like every other class at this university. The Budweiser clips are classic, not only because yeah that's my favorite beer, but because they actually do have a point that deals with this class: any person, small or large, has the ability to make an impact on the world. The donkey knew what he wanted his entire life and he was hell bent on getting it...
So, I've decided Nate's a pretty good guy to have as our group leader. Over the weekend, while I was at Mardi Gras, he's working on ways to construct our tower that I didn't even know we had to do until Monday morning when I got home. By the time I emailed him back to offer to help, some of the group had already met and decided what materials to use and what our tower would look like. Talk about feeling like an ass, I'm in Louisiana and my group is at home working on our project that we ar...