This week we will be reading the first two actual chapters of our text, each focusing on one of Shackleton's Ten Strategies of Leadership. Remember that you are to blog on at least one chapter per week, and the "Expedition Log" at the end of each chapter provides good, thought-provoking questions for you to respond to. For example, from Chapter 1 "Vision and Quick Victories” you are asked to define your
Long-term vision and Short-term goals for getting there. Use the questions on
Pgs. 27 and 28 for ideas, but essentially what you want to do is describe your hopes and
dreams for the future, and the various steps along the way that will help you
to achieve them.
As promised, I will do my best to do the same writing
assignments as you.
In this case, as I consider a long-term vision and
short-term goals, I would like to consider our course as an “organization,”
with me as “leader” (although I'd rather see myself as "facilitator") and all of us together exploring terra incognita (unknown territory). Perhaps this can give you a better sense of what this course is intended to be and your part in it.
Long-term vision
Perkins talks about how Shackleton had to “be willing to
find a ‘new mark’” (16) such as when he told his crew “So now we’ll go home” (16)
when he lost his ship (and hopes of crossing Antarctica). This course, for me,
is a new mark—I have abandoned the popular “Adventure Travel” course that I
taught for many years in order to take an entirely new direction with this
course.
My intention is to create a course that combines an interest
in organizational development (how organizations and the people in them
function, develop, manage change, etc) and such interrelated topics as
leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution, team building, etc. as outlined
in the description and syllabus for the course. But these topics interlink with
a wide variety of other social behavioral interests such as interpersonal
communication, emotional and social intelligence, group dynamics, human
motivation, etc. —all of which are also fascinating. The problem is that whole
books have been written about each of these topics. It is a challenge knowing
where to begin and what to include, while at the same time providing some sort
of unifying theme for the course.
So…this course will offer a sampling of many of these
aspects of human behavior in organizational settings, with an opportunity for
you at the end (with your final presentations) to focus on an area of
particular interest that you can present and share with the class. But to
provide a unifying theme, we will focus on the topic of leadership throughout
the course via our text and our blog entries.
Short-term goals
A big goal right now is getting us all on board with our
blogs. We simply need to get in the habit of reading the text, making posts, seeing what others have written, and making a few comments. We are all linked together so we can work as a team sharing with
each other our thoughts, dreams, goals, etc. Thanks to the many of you who are already off to a great start.
Another, related goal, is to get a better sense of what each
of you wants so that we can negotiate our way forward with this course
based on your input.
Perkins mentions how Shackleton was able to “create engaging
distractions”(26) to keep his crew motivated. I will try to do the same. I will provide you with web links, occasional short web clips in class, some fun activities, guest speakers, etc. which I hope provides inspiration and motivation.
This is enough for me for now (probably more than enough!), and I look forward to hearing
from you.
No comments:
Post a Comment