GRAD 702 - Reflections on Module 5 Concepts

I enjoyed so many things about completing the PDP. I have looked at it over and over again and am really pleased with it. I liked it! My goal was to have it done by Friday so I could have it in to the SLC and meet with my coach to go over it in depth on Saturday. I stuck to the plan and boy did I have fun writing it and reviewing it. By putting all the assessments together in one clear matrix, I was able to really visualize my strengths and weaknesses. Reflecting on the past and planning for the future is always a great thing to do as well. Overall, I thought it was fun. My coach and I have been friends for a few years and of all the people I considered to be my coach, I thought she would be the best. She has been a professional and a manager with her company for more than 6 years now and I thought her experience would be advantageous to my program. I was never worried that the fact that we were friends first would get in the way. When I met with her on Saturday, I was proven right. We caught up on our personal lives as friends do and then I explained to her the assignment requirements (gave her the criteria and many of the handouts given to us in class) and showed her all of my assessments. We were together for a good 5 hours and I felt great about our coach/student relationship. She is enjoying this as much as I am. She is buying the books and taking some of the assessments for herself and really getting into the coaching aspect of things. The PDP has taught me so much about myself. By completing this assignment, I have learned that we never stop learning about ourselves and why we are who we are. I thought it was great and I can't wait for you, Maria to read it!

I wish I could say the most significant aspect of researching the external environmental segment actually had to do with the paper but it didn't. The most significant aspect was the storming part of teaming that came out of it. We had issues with communication, delegation, and personality conflicts. We actually met last night to have a conflict resolution meeting. Things were a little uncomfortable at first but once we starting "passing the stick" and opening up to one another, we started to really make progress. No one likes the storming phase of teaming but sometimes it is unavoidable. Actually avoiding it will cause more issues. We learned that in our team. I believe and I know Kyle and Tammy feel much better since our meeting. We have all expressed this and are anxious to press forward. I have always liked our team. We all individually have a lot to offer. Sometimes there are bumps in the road to performance but it's how you handle it. Because of our team dynamics, we were able to handle the issues with respect and professionalism. That has made and I am sure will continue to make all the difference.

I believe one of the most significant parts of completing the PDP will be how I work with others in the future. I have learned that you have to take a more wholistic point of view when completing tasks. Integrating others and fine-tuning this aspect of myself will help with the performance of myself and those I work with. I am eagerly looking forward to putting all the lessons learned in grad school to practice. I am already practicing with my team and have learned so much about myself and what makes a team so successful. Teaming will always be a work in progress but constant improvement and reflection will push each and every one of us to better and more effective leadership roles.

Wisdom can be defined in many ways. It can be achieved in many ways as well. I do not believe wisdom comes soley from education. It is defined in our life experiences, the relationships we have, and the way in which we apply or utilize our education equates to our personal wisdom.

GRAD 702 - Reflections on Module 4 Concepts

I learned a lot about my team and our strengths from demonstrating our team's metaphor. I realized that all of us have a lot more creativity than we give ourselves credit. I'm the analytical and organized one, Tammy is more symbolic and talkative, while Kyle is rational and logical. All of our attributes and competencies as leaders came together in this assignment. We first started to form our ideas through brainstorming and then through organized and focused thought. Our ideas flourished into a paper and a wildly humorous skit. Which I hope you enjoyed. :) I also found it refreshing to be back in front of an audience. The practice is great and one element of my job in the military I had been missing. Lucky us, we get to do it again in week 6!

I would have to say at this point in my life and career path, I am both a manager and a leader. I have had experience "climbing the ladder" and "is the ladder against the right wall" (Covey, 2004)? I have managed both things and led people. I have made quick informed decisions and lengthy structured ones. My actual position in the military was that of a manager. I feel I fulfilled those duties and learned to excel through my leadership practices. I was able to influence people and lead them toward a common goal or vision. I was a planner and came up with creative and innovative ideas within my section. I was responsible for change that resulted in fewer discrepancies and saved our squadron more money than the five previous years. For these reasons, I believe I was a manager but most definitely a leader.

My meeting with my coach went way better than I thought. I knew what we would discuss and had prepared discussion and questions but I had no idea she would be as excited and interested in coaching me as she is. I was delighted to find this out! She is someone I have known for about two years now and has been a manager in the collections industry for more than five years. I picked her because I knew she was intelligent, easy to talk to, and would be able to understand and support my graduate goals. I feel I have made the right choice and I am so excited about our future as coach and student! In our meeting, we discussed our expectations and goals for the remainder of the program, the PDP, and later over the phone, her first coaching seminar at Franklin. We are both really enthusiastic about the whole process and this it is a wonderful addition to the MBA program.

I enjoyed doing the project management competency card sort because it opened my eyes to how I see myself. I am usually very confident in myself and my capabilities but when I did this assignment I found that sometimes that is not the case. In week three, I had listed personal competencies and in week four I had listed what I thought a manager should possess. Surprisingly enough, my top five cards had only one overlap. I thought my personal competencies would match more what I thought a manager's competencies should be. I found this to be very interesting and starting thinking about how this could affect my future and what I could learn from this assignment. Instead of getting upset that the card sorts did not match, I focused on what the ideal manager should be like and where I was lacking. I made a list and have now stated it as a personal goal to focus on and fine tune these competencies throughout my graduate program and life. With the help of my coach, teammates, and professors, I believe I can restore faith and become a better manager and leader. A leader others will want to emulate.

GRAD 702 - Reflections on Module 3 Concepts

I feel most comfortable in the collaborative and least comfortable in the strategic perspectives of the 4-lens model. As a professional leading in the next change wave, this suggests to me that I should be aware of my strengths and weaknesses with regard to certain perspectives. As for where I fall short, I should appreciate and accept others and their perspectives for a better collaborative solution to everyday problems in the workplace and various situations throughout my life. Working in teams and understanding all perspectives will only promote wholistic and well-rounded thinking. All organizations have all perspectives within their staff; all four should be used.

My personal competency sort results mean that I perceive myself to be very aware of myself and others and am very good with working with people. I enjoy working with and discussing topics of concern at all levels. My results from this exercise were very much in accordance with the emotional intelligence test and the HBDI results. It has become very clear to me what my strengths are and where I should focus my attention for further development. Fortunately, I have a team full of other perspectives and a very diverse structure among the other classmates in GRAD 702.

When I was in the military working as the Officer in Charge (OIC) of the Personnel Readiness Unit (PRU), I had a situation in which my emotional intelligence came in very handy. In my undergraduate studies, I studied psychology. I enjoy and am very focused on the reflective, organized, and empathetic quadrants of emotional intelligence. I have found these two factors to work and complement each other time and time again. In PRU, we had two new members to the team and they were experiencing personal issues of their own outside the office. The issues started to reflect in their work and create tension within the office among all of the members. Because these two individuals were new, the veterans of the office were not sure how to react or what to say. I decided to schedule a meeting so we could discuss various PRU topics to include the one of recent tension. As discussions progressed, led by me, slowly but surely, the tension issue began to surface and the underlying problems were revealed. Through organized discussion and respect for one another, the two feuding individuals were able to resolve their issues and the other members of the PRU team were able to draw attention to the tension their feud had caused in the office. They were not even aware of the tension because their focus was mostly on what was going on in their personal lives. Once everyone shared their concerns and got the issues out on the table and dealt with, PRU was able to go back to work and be even more productive than they were before. This was a very good learning lesson for me and now I am aware that I relied heavily on my emotional intelligence in this situation.

As always, I like reflecting on past assignments and readings in the blog entry. This gives me a great way to end the week and collect all of my thoughts. I also found the 4-lens application assignment to be very helpful. I believe I completely understood the 4-lens model, but actually putting the different perspectives to work can be quite a challenge. At work and in our teams we may do this without thinking because those we work with are from various viewpoints or quadrants. When we actually sit down and try to solve a problem based on all four quadrants by ourselves, we disover this is quite the task. I enjoyed exploring other quadrants and trying to think how others would think. I believe I may be getting better at it because of my interaction through work experiences and my teammates. Either way, I definitely have a better understanding of myself and others because of these assignments.

I thought the reading on the "third alternative" (Covey, 2004) this past week was excellent! In our group, Team Fuel, I believe seeking this alternative would have been more helpful in our beginning stages. When we first got started, we all took our own personal approaches to solving issues. We listened to one another and had respect for one another but after everything was said and done, we would leave the session feeling like something was missing. We became aware of this happening this past week. None of us wanted to upset anyone or disturb the dynamics of the group. We were just being agreeable and didn't really listen and understand what the other member was saying. We were so focused on our own ideas that we ignored the 4-lens model and how effective it can be. After a few weeks of working with one another, this became apparent. We started really listening to each other and asking each other to express and explain their ideas. We were open to other alternatives. Whenever working in a group, perspectives will always be a work in progress. This kind of change or awareness does not happen over night. The main thing to keep in mind is the 4-lens model. We do not and will not all think alike. When we start accepting and appreciating the way others think, that is when the 4-lens model comes alive! I've very excited about our group and where we are going. I believe all members have a lot to offer and I'm proud to be a member of Team Fuel!