The chapter 16 was wonderful.
All the strategies and the skills that were on the other chapter gave me information I needed to know, but this chapter was especially so.
The chapter not only brought together the ten core strategies, but it kind of ordered in the importance. In page 216, it says that "in the spirit of Strategy 10 Never give up - with enough creativity and determination, you can accomplish the mission even if your strategy is not perfect". This message encourages a lot for me because I personally think that I'm not actually talented as a leader or I don't know much skills or techniques to manage as a leader in groups, but I have experiences. One thing I can declare now is that I will definitely be experiencing more as a leader in groups in the close and far future and that fact won't change no matter what happens in my leadership life. The quote hit me really much because I think that I can cultivate the "creativity and determination" by having many experiences and can overcome the importance of strategies and skills. However, first I have to admit that I am incompetent and ignorance to lead many teams nor experience the teamwork. So that is why I have to cultivate poised incompetence. As the author ends at the last of this section, accepting one's incompetence,
also means that one is having desire to improve and raise one's ability. I all ways think this is the most important : 向上心 in Japanese.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Personal Mission Statement
Personal Mission Statement
My purpose for being on this Earth is to live life honestly, compassionately and positively with love, community and relationships.
My mission is to solve problems between people as many as possible and to devote a half of my life time showing full performance of leadership at the community and work with people I love.
In order to achieve the mission, for the short term goal, I would need to study inside and outside the classroom to widen my potential capacity, and for the long term goal, I should determine particular area where I can make concrete decision as a leader of the team.
The desire for the other half of my life is to stay simple with lifelong partner, two or more children and close friends. For my parents, I want to give them something back like they did to me because I thank them really much.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
LE "Lighten Up!"
I thought my organization is always filled with laughter and celebration.
It's not that we always have to be as optimistic as possible, but it is surely important not to be too serious all the time too. In order to enhance the best of teamwork performance, being severe and serious is sometimes important but the leader should not give a wrong prescription of that serious atmosphere.
It is true that jokes and fooling are not always beneficial. It sometimes makes people angry and frustrated which might lead the teamwork to fall apart and that, we want to avoid definitely. So we should use jokes in constructive way and this is often difficult that requires some thinking before joking.
I think the last point of this chapter's expedition log: "Can you laugh at yourself?"is the essential part of this chapter. Even if one leader is really capable of any work, smart and perfect person, if he/she can not laugh at themselves, it means that the members of the group can not laugh at the situation. If you want to lighten up the atmosphere of the team, first thing you need to do as a leader is may be to laugh at the situation even if it is so serious or dark.
It's not that we always have to be as optimistic as possible, but it is surely important not to be too serious all the time too. In order to enhance the best of teamwork performance, being severe and serious is sometimes important but the leader should not give a wrong prescription of that serious atmosphere.
It is true that jokes and fooling are not always beneficial. It sometimes makes people angry and frustrated which might lead the teamwork to fall apart and that, we want to avoid definitely. So we should use jokes in constructive way and this is often difficult that requires some thinking before joking.
I think the last point of this chapter's expedition log: "Can you laugh at yourself?"is the essential part of this chapter. Even if one leader is really capable of any work, smart and perfect person, if he/she can not laugh at themselves, it means that the members of the group can not laugh at the situation. If you want to lighten up the atmosphere of the team, first thing you need to do as a leader is may be to laugh at the situation even if it is so serious or dark.
LE "Team Message"
Firstly, I really enjoyed reading this chapter because things I wanted to know right now were on the text right there.
I have been suffering what should I do as one of the executives in LAMBS as I mentioned on this blog. At page 80, the author talks about the importance of sharing essential information in the organization.
The executives were having meetings and discussions 4 days in a row five hours a day, but we haven't come up with the best solution. Having this result, I said to the other executive members the need of sharing and making the information explicit. But of course there were refusals because it might perplex the team even more. However, what I insisted was the executive's inclination of listening to other people's directly said opinions. Perkins says that the core people do not need to share information that are still in progress every time, and I understand that, but we, the executives, should think more closely which information to hide and which not to hide.
The demerit of core people not sharing vital information with the others is that it's going to separate and set apart the distance of the two. Others would definitely feel isolated from executives if they hide information too much.
So,what we did to make the distance between executives and others is that we did small group discussion including one or two executives in each group. The idea was said by me and other executive again refused my idea, but I argued strongly and made them convinced. The result was apparently beneficial as I thought, because there were many people who didn't understand what the executives were actually doing and talking these days. But at least, I think we could narrow the gap between executives and others.
Team messages are also equally important with sharing information too.
I have been suffering what should I do as one of the executives in LAMBS as I mentioned on this blog. At page 80, the author talks about the importance of sharing essential information in the organization.
The executives were having meetings and discussions 4 days in a row five hours a day, but we haven't come up with the best solution. Having this result, I said to the other executive members the need of sharing and making the information explicit. But of course there were refusals because it might perplex the team even more. However, what I insisted was the executive's inclination of listening to other people's directly said opinions. Perkins says that the core people do not need to share information that are still in progress every time, and I understand that, but we, the executives, should think more closely which information to hide and which not to hide.
The demerit of core people not sharing vital information with the others is that it's going to separate and set apart the distance of the two. Others would definitely feel isolated from executives if they hide information too much.
So,what we did to make the distance between executives and others is that we did small group discussion including one or two executives in each group. The idea was said by me and other executive again refused my idea, but I argued strongly and made them convinced. The result was apparently beneficial as I thought, because there were many people who didn't understand what the executives were actually doing and talking these days. But at least, I think we could narrow the gap between executives and others.
Team messages are also equally important with sharing information too.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
LE "Stamina"
By reading ch.4, it made me think that maintaining physical strength is really important not only for leaders but for followers too because teams won’t be able to do anything even when the leaders were only able to work and powerful. So maybe it is “Stamina” is important for leaders for themselves, and they always need to care about others’ too.
There are several outlets for my frustrated or stressed feeling.
First of all, as it says in the page 64, I’ll talk to my friends.
When I have something that I dont understand well or can’t find any solutions that are problem of the samba club, I would have some time to go for restaurant to have some talk with my close friends who are also in the same club. I think this is the best possible way to refresh my anxiety because friends are the one who really understand me how I feel and so they are the ones who I can greatly trust on.
In addition to this, I really agreed with the saying in the book that said “Write letters home. Communicate with others you care about even if they may not fully understand the conditions you face”.
About the one talking with my friends, the advices I can get from those friends are important, but in this latter case, it doesn’t matter whether the other person im writing understands what Im talking about, and the content of the letter is not necessarily important, but rather, the process of expressing my feeling openly and freely has significant meaning.
I was thinking about the reason why this topic was in this chapter which stressed on physical strength. I thought it was because the author wanted to insist that the leader must not feel too responsible for one’s mistakes and leaders sometimes must need to explicit the frustrated feelings.
There are several outlets for my frustrated or stressed feeling.
First of all, as it says in the page 64, I’ll talk to my friends.
When I have something that I dont understand well or can’t find any solutions that are problem of the samba club, I would have some time to go for restaurant to have some talk with my close friends who are also in the same club. I think this is the best possible way to refresh my anxiety because friends are the one who really understand me how I feel and so they are the ones who I can greatly trust on.
In addition to this, I really agreed with the saying in the book that said “Write letters home. Communicate with others you care about even if they may not fully understand the conditions you face”.
About the one talking with my friends, the advices I can get from those friends are important, but in this latter case, it doesn’t matter whether the other person im writing understands what Im talking about, and the content of the letter is not necessarily important, but rather, the process of expressing my feeling openly and freely has significant meaning.
I was thinking about the reason why this topic was in this chapter which stressed on physical strength. I thought it was because the author wanted to insist that the leader must not feel too responsible for one’s mistakes and leaders sometimes must need to explicit the frustrated feelings.
Monday, May 2, 2011
LE "Symbolism and Personal Example"
I'm sorry for my late post....
For this post, I'm going to respond to the expedition log in Ch.2.
Well first of all, for me the most important priority of the team is that "whether everyone, every single person, have the equal opportunity to say their opinions". I think this is the most critical and fundamental rule of any team. For instance on the one hand, there are who are good at expressing their opinions clearly and explicitly, but on the other, there are some people who are not good at doing such thing in front of many people. This is the fact which the leader of that team must understand in order to achieve the priority I mentioned. I think the good leader should be good at letting the other people talk at a some kind of conference situation.
For the second point I already mentioned that the leader can show that everyone needs to talk equally by letting others talk and not making the same person talking too much. So for the third point, I don't think I'm giving the right speech to the team to mobilize and encourage. Right now I'm having meetings many times with sophomore students in LAMBS to decide the next executives which is gonna start working practically from September. I'm the one who kind of managing and organizing the meeting consisted of 20 students, but I couldn't do enough to make all the people talk because I was too nervous and hasty wanting to decide many things at once. So I really regret that I failed in organizing the conference.
for the forth point, actually I'm not a leader or anything yet so I can't say anything really...but I feel it would be nice to have a lot of opportunities to talk privately with people who are not willing to express their opinions freely at the executive meeting.
For this post, I'm going to respond to the expedition log in Ch.2.
Well first of all, for me the most important priority of the team is that "whether everyone, every single person, have the equal opportunity to say their opinions". I think this is the most critical and fundamental rule of any team. For instance on the one hand, there are who are good at expressing their opinions clearly and explicitly, but on the other, there are some people who are not good at doing such thing in front of many people. This is the fact which the leader of that team must understand in order to achieve the priority I mentioned. I think the good leader should be good at letting the other people talk at a some kind of conference situation.
For the second point I already mentioned that the leader can show that everyone needs to talk equally by letting others talk and not making the same person talking too much. So for the third point, I don't think I'm giving the right speech to the team to mobilize and encourage. Right now I'm having meetings many times with sophomore students in LAMBS to decide the next executives which is gonna start working practically from September. I'm the one who kind of managing and organizing the meeting consisted of 20 students, but I couldn't do enough to make all the people talk because I was too nervous and hasty wanting to decide many things at once. So I really regret that I failed in organizing the conference.
for the forth point, actually I'm not a leader or anything yet so I can't say anything really...but I feel it would be nice to have a lot of opportunities to talk privately with people who are not willing to express their opinions freely at the executive meeting.
Friday, April 22, 2011
LE "Vision and Quick Victories"
In order to respond to this week's expedition log, I would first like to put my sentence for the Dan Pink video.
So, according to the sentence above, my personal leadership goal is that when I become a leader of certain team somehow in the future (not so far maybe...), I want to support every single person in the team and speak with them openly and I don't want the team to have bad atmosphere.
To explain this and the "new mark", I would like to talk about samba circle I'm participating right now , ICU LAMBS. It's not that I'm a leader there, but I'm one of the ten executives. This year, LAMBS was so disappointed because summer's biggest samba parade called the Asakusa Samba carnival was suspended due to the quake disaster. This news was a real shock for all of the members, so the executives had lots and lots of meetings to think of an alternative event that everyone would participate, and it even lasted all night with skype. With lots of hard work and meetings, we had concluded that we are going to plan a live concert somewhere during the summer.
This I want to say that it was a "new mark" because it was a big shift for everyone to reconsider our main summer event, which previously was an Asakusa samba parade to a summer live. The final decision was made by all member's agreement eventually but everyone had no doubt executives and leaders did lots of hard works. It is surely understandable that the captain also wanted to do the parade somehow, but it was important to rethink that feeling and seek for another solution.
I think that this situation is same as the Endurance experiences and the sir Ernest's quick shift change.
For the long term goal I put the "sentence" above, so as for my short term goals, I want say those are really closely related to skills we're discussing right now in class such as negotiation skills!!
I think learning how to communicate well and persuade others by my own words is the best way to solve the problem. Our samba club does have lots and lots of meetings so it is crucial to know skills to make the situation Win- Win, and that's what I want to specialize through out the class and my whole life.
He led teams many times in many ways and fully influenced people around him.
So, according to the sentence above, my personal leadership goal is that when I become a leader of certain team somehow in the future (not so far maybe...), I want to support every single person in the team and speak with them openly and I don't want the team to have bad atmosphere.
To explain this and the "new mark", I would like to talk about samba circle I'm participating right now , ICU LAMBS. It's not that I'm a leader there, but I'm one of the ten executives. This year, LAMBS was so disappointed because summer's biggest samba parade called the Asakusa Samba carnival was suspended due to the quake disaster. This news was a real shock for all of the members, so the executives had lots and lots of meetings to think of an alternative event that everyone would participate, and it even lasted all night with skype. With lots of hard work and meetings, we had concluded that we are going to plan a live concert somewhere during the summer.
This I want to say that it was a "new mark" because it was a big shift for everyone to reconsider our main summer event, which previously was an Asakusa samba parade to a summer live. The final decision was made by all member's agreement eventually but everyone had no doubt executives and leaders did lots of hard works. It is surely understandable that the captain also wanted to do the parade somehow, but it was important to rethink that feeling and seek for another solution.
I think that this situation is same as the Endurance experiences and the sir Ernest's quick shift change.
For the long term goal I put the "sentence" above, so as for my short term goals, I want say those are really closely related to skills we're discussing right now in class such as negotiation skills!!
I think learning how to communicate well and persuade others by my own words is the best way to solve the problem. Our samba club does have lots and lots of meetings so it is crucial to know skills to make the situation Win- Win, and that's what I want to specialize through out the class and my whole life.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
LE "Preface"
I have experienced being both as a leader and a follower of a team. I was a president of school council in high school, and simultaneously was a member of drama club. So my whole blog posts would somehow going to be connected to my opinion of qualities that are needed for good leader based on my experience being a leader myself subjectively and observing a particular leader as a follower myself. But for today, I’m going to talk about my experience being a head of the school council.
Being a head of school council was really hard for me mainly because some council members were incorporative.
In my school, the student council was not restricted by teachers and school rules, so we could do anything if we really wanted to achieve it. However, this also meant that if we don’t work hard to make school problems solved and plan an event, nothing would happen and even teachers won’t say anything to inspire us. They would be silent till we move or say something.
When I was the president, only thing that was in my head was: how can I lead these eleven council members to work hard?? So I think I was frustrated all the time and giving orders in authoritative tone. But just as anyone could expect, many of the members quitted not officially but virtually working as a school council.
At that time I was around 17 and had no doubt I was wrong, but now I could easily realized that I was so wrong mostly in two meanings.
1. I should have made clear distinction between the on/off.
2. According to the above condition, I should have trusted the others and leave their work on their hands.
I was nervous and angry all the time worrying everyone is doing their work alright, but I shouldn’t have done that because those bad attitude made others feel more and more frustrated and not wanting to work. I should have said more bright and humorous things like it said in Leading at the Edge.
I'm looking forward to study more qualities of good leadership by reading the Perkins' book and by discussing in class. I also want to share more of my thoughts based on my experience both as a leader and a follower.
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