Pause, Reflect, Grow
“Dewey was the first to point out that experience alone does not constitute learning; instead, a conscious realization must occur for the experience to become a source of learning.”
Reflection of Management 470 — Leadership, Communication, and Teams in the Virtual World
Course Event, Assignment, Activity #1: Leadership Challenge
recalling (e.g., recalling an episode/event)
The Leadership Challenge was on a nice Saturday morning on the outskirts of Lincoln. There were the different obstacle courses, games, and even rock climbing.
recapturing (e.g., capturing the emotions, accomplishments, and challenges)
I can think of so many emotions captured in the events. All had a team building component which I especially loved. I remember feeling frustrated by some games because our team wasn’t figuring out the loop hole. I remember feeling happy learning everyone’s names and a couple things more about each of their personalities. I remember feeling curious at how crucial communication is when you are trying to accomplish a goal. The biggest emotion I remember is when we were rock climbing — the fear and exhilaration. I am someone who loves thrilling things but I am not going to lie there were for sure moments climbing up I got scared and heard my team encouraging me.
relating (e.g., relating what was recalled to previous personal experiences)
The Leadership Challenge had me recalling previous personal experiences as a strengths coach and orientation leader. Things I had learned about adversity, knowing people’s names, how different personalities can work together to accomplish a goal, and how to rely on and trust your team.
rationalizing (e.g., understanding the patterns or learning from experiences to create meaning from past events)
The pattern of “who’s the new guy.” It is so funny how people are so unwilling to break the ice with icebreakers but how beneficial if done well they can be in the long term. The meaning in the fear I was experiencing climbing up the rock wall, for example, I trusted my teammates and they were encouraging me so I was able to feel the exhilaration at the top. The meaning in that experience is the trust and reliance. This can all translate in a business as well.
redirecting (e.g., engaging in purposeful thinking directed towards future actions)
For starters someday if I do in fact become a Human Resources department manager, I would like to do an activity like this because I saw how much of a community it built within our class. I have never had a class in the College of Business (outside of Builders classes) where I knew everyone’s name and we actually say hi to each other when we see each other. At one point I went to Austin, Texas and when I got on the plane, I saw a girl in the class (Leah) and turned to my parents and said, “that’s Leah she’s in one of my management classes she must be traveling for bowling.” Sure, enough when I talked to her she said they had a bowling tournament and I wished her luck. My parents commented how cool they thought it was that I knew her name and some other things she was involved in. I don’t say that in a ‘go me’ for remembering that stuff, me remembering that stuff actually has nothing to do with me at all. It provided a conversation for my parents and I about the Leadership Challenge and other team building activities done in the class that were the reason. Now I understand from a business stand point someone might read this and say okay yeah that’s great that there was community but business is business. I would disagree because I think of this challenge and when I was frustrated or scared who was I relying on to get “business” (the task) done — my teammates. How much quicker do we accomplish things when we trust our teammates and can rely on each other. How much better quality are results when people are actually enjoying doing them. Business is business yes, but better business is only accomplished through community. I want to further my growth through this experience in my confidence as a manager in my abilities to drive high performance teams through relationship building. My skill set is literally called “soft skills.” People often need a lot of convincing so I hope to further grow these and develop them — applying what I learned from this challenge to my internship this summer.
After completion of the Leadership Challenge above is me smiling as my teammates help me come back down to earth.
Course Event, Assignment, Activity #2: Yellow dig
recalling (e.g., recalling an episode/event)
In my opinion Yellow dig was almost serving as a professional social media for our class. The assignment was to reach a certain amount of points each week — the points were earned through posting, commenting, and liking or reacting to other people’s posts.
recapturing (e.g., capturing the emotions, accomplishments, and challenges)
I am going to be completely blunt here — I thought this was the biggest pain and annoyance at the start of the semester. I can remember feeling so frustrated thinking that it was “busy” work. Unfortunately, it took me almost the entire semester to see the value in it. The emotion I now experience with Yellow dig is interest. It is so interesting to read what my classmates found interesting because not only do I learn something new but I also learn their unique interests and thoughts on something.
relating (e.g., relating what was recalled to previous personal experiences)
I have had other classes which required discussion boards but this system was SO much better. My goodness I cannot emphasize that enough. The way the points system works and what was required of a post made it so much more engaging. They weren’t these long drawn out required criterion type posts. It was recent articles and person’s takeaways — so crazy how much execution matters in an assignment holding actual learning value.
rationalizing (e.g., understanding the patterns or learning from experiences to create meaning from past events)
I now see the meaning in these past experiences and why everyone in the class was so disengaged in the discussions. Another element is giving people the freedom to post what they found interesting and not always what the teacher finds interesting.
redirecting (e.g., engaging in purposeful thinking directed towards future actions)
I cannot wait to incorporate this in a company someday. I think it could be so beneficial to have a company yellow dig. It could serve as the professional social media of the company and would be a great way for a large company to seem a bit smaller and also help remote workers still feel included. My dad has a company newspaper and it is distributed in physical newspapers. I think with where the future is heading something like yellow dig could be more sustainable and easier to access and distribute. I am excited to think of ways to motivate employees to post in it because it is a “great idea” in theory but you would need a tangible way to motivate people which I think would depend on the type of company. If I had it my way I would love to serve as HR manager at a manufacturing company and think if executed properly this could be cool. It would serve as a great way for employees to see what other employees are interested in outside of work and/or even their current role. How cool could it be for a manager to see a warehouse employee posting articles about another department and possibly their interest in switching roles within — an easy (and cheap) way to internally develop and engage people.
