Indiana’s State of the State from the ‘Tweet Seats’
The 2015 ‘Tweet Seats’ with Speaker of the House Brian Bosma
In keeping with my 2015 goal to reread one book of prior great influence each month, I started this month by rereading Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation by Harlow Giles Unger. This was so fitting because he was such a believer in state’s rights. This past week I was reminded of how precious these rights are to states after being invited to attend Governor Mike Pence’s State of the State Address by Speaker of the House Brian Bosma and the Indiana House Republicans. Actually, I was invited with responsibilities. I was to be a member of the ‘Tweet Seats.’ In other words, I was responsible, along with four others, to do tweets during the State of the State Address. So, think about all of the things that happened in our Indiana State House on Tuesday, January 13, 2015 that would not have been possible without Patrick Henry’s original call to arms and then all of his work to make sure we had a Bill of Rights in place. Because of our Freedom of Speech I was able to tweet 49 tweets during the State of the State Address to my 70,000 plus followers. I continue to be amazed at the power of social media today. I was also amazed at how many people were following the speech using twitter. Twitter is one of the most powerful tools available right now for receiving news. Twitter is also an important modem for personal professional growth.
My ‘Tweet Seat’
I am including PDFs of the press release and Twitter handles/hashtags here:
TweetSeat_HandlesHashtags_final
Press Release_Tweet Seats_2015
Patrick Henry’s famous words “Give me liberty or give me death!”—shouted during a speech to the House of Burgesses in 1775—put into clear terms how the colonies should respond to an encroaching British military force. This call to arms has since been immortalized, much like the man himself. A leader through and through, Henry’s life motto might as well have been “no compromise,” making him a great study in leadership.
It was 1787, long after the war had ended. Patrick Henry, seeing the possibility of tyranny as the result of a newly proposed United States Constitution, he rose in opposition to fellow founder, James Madison. Henry would not be satisfied until a Bill of Rights was adopted as part of the constitution, making him the primary historical force behind the liberties Americans have today. He also believed very strongly in state’s rights. He believed that states should govern themselves. Interestingly, he spoke about states being in a better position to govern themselves because they had governors who lived among the people and knew the people. Though strongly anti-Federalist, Henry later changed mind after learning of the radicalism of the French Revolution. He did not want America to suffer the same fate. This showed that while he was certainly a leader of principle, he could be convinced of another course if the evidence was overwhelming enough—an important quality to have in a leader. Henry joined up with George Washington and John Adams to support Federalist policies, and later on was even elected to the Virginia House of Delegates as a Federalist. I could not help but think about what Patrick Henry would be tweeting had there been a colonial iPad for him to use.
Ronald Reagan in the Indiana House of Representatives Chamber
During his speech, Governor Pence quoted President Ronald Reagan. Reagan, speaking a little more than thirty years ago from the very podium that Pence was speaking from, said the federal government was “still operating on the outdated and arrogant assumption that the states can’t manage their own affairs.” “That day,” Pence said, “he predicted it would be states like ours [Indiana] that would come to America’s rescue.” In that speech Reagan when on to say that states like ours would “offer the most creative solutions and most promising hopes for our nation.” Reagan believed, as Patrick Henry did, in the ability of states to govern themselves. We are so blessed that Governor Pence believes this as well. Pence went on to say: “Well, Reagan was right.”
Governor Pence then said: “At a time when public confidence in our federal government is at an all-time low, states have emerged as a source of inspiration on fiscal policy, economic growth, education and health care reform. And Indiana is leading the way, proving every day that we can balance our budgets, run our schools, choose our health care and serve our people far better than ‘a little intellectual elite in a far distant capitol’ (quote from Ronald Reagan) ever could.”
Proud to be part of this great group!
It was such an incredible experience to be a part of the State of the State Address. Those of us in the ‘Tweet Seats’ were given a copy of the speech just prior to the address so we could get our thoughts together for our tweets. Then Speaker Bosma met with us to go over parts of the speech and legislative agenda he thought were important for us to know to do a quality job of tweeting out the State of the State message. I continue to be so impressed with how passionate Speaker Bosma is for doing what is right for Indiana. I would now like to share my thoughts from the State of the State by listing a “Baker’s Dozen” of my top retweeted and favorited tweets during the speech. Here they are:
1. You get more good teachers by paying good teachers more! #education #INLegis
2. The key to unlocking all potential in #Indiana is #education! @GovPenceIN calls for this to be an #edreform session. #INSOTS #INLegis
3. Every #Hoosier child deserves to start school ready to #learn. #education #INSOTS #INLegis
4. 100,000 more students enrolled in high performing #schools by 2020. #edreform #education #INSOTS #INLegis
5. We need more great #teachers! @GovPenceIN #INSOTS #INLegis
6. Career and Technical #Education needs to be a priority in every #school in the state of #Indiana. #INLegis #INSOTS
7. @GovPenceIN calling for a required balanced #inbudget! Add a balanced budget amendment. #INLegis #INSOTS
8. Graduation rates are up. Test scores are up, the doors of our pre-K programs are open to disadvantaged kids. @GovPenceIN #INSOTS #edreform
9. We have the largest #education voucher system in the country! #edreform @GovPenceIN @INHouseGOP
10. @GovPenceIN calls for more #schoolchoice through innovative #CharterSchools! #edreform #education #INLegis #INSOTS
11. Adjust funding for our #charterschools to provide opportunities for all our children! @GovPenceIN @INHouseGOP #edreform #education #INSOTS
12. We must lift the cap on dollar amount that #choiceschools receive for students. @GovPenceIN @INHouseGOP #INSOTS #INLegis #edreform #inedchat
13. Raise the cap on the #schoolchoice scholarship tax credit. #schoolchoice #CharterSchools #edreform #education
Here is a PDF text transcript of the entire State of the State Address:
2015StateoftheState
As you can see, Governor Pence has laid out a very aggressive plan for Indiana. After spending time reading and listening to his speech, I have no doubt we will be successful. Governor Pence closed out his speech saying, “If we will act with resolve & are bold, we will fulfill Indiana’s promise for this generation and next.” I closed out the evening with this tweet: Great State of the State @GovPenceIN! Lots to do for #Indiana. Loved your final words of #INSOTS: “Let’s get to work!” @Brian_Bosma will help!
In closing I want to thank Speaker of the House Brian Bosma, and the Indiana House Republicans for giving me the honor of being a part of the Indiana State of the State Address “Tweet Seats.” I believe that Patrick Henry would be proud of Indiana and would agree with Governor Pence when he said, “we will fulfill the promise, not just of our time, but we will fulfill the promise first forged beneath that constitution elm in Corydon in 1816—the promise of a state built on freedom that would become a beacon of hope and an example to the nation.” The Governor’s agenda is living out both Patrick Henry’s and Ronald Reagan’s vision for the states of our great nation!
Learning from Speaker of the House Bosma
My new best friends – The Chicks on the Right!
I love to Tweet!
Dedication Attracts People
I must say that I looked forward to my dedicated study time this morning for reading the second week’s lesson in A Year With Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness. As you know from my first week’s post I dedicated myself to spending personal professional development time each week in doing a personal book study and then writing a post to this blog each week. Click here to read the first week’s post.
This week’s coaching lesson was very appropriate. The title of Week 2 is: “Questions to Ask Before Committing a Portion of Your Life to the Service of an Organization.” This was obviously important because I have had to do this in my life several times. But more importantly, it caused we to reflect on the importance of making sure the school corporation I lead can answer those questions correctly and is able to ensure everyone has a chance to achieve and make a meaningful contribution. These are two of the most important tasks an organization has to perform, according to Drucker (Maciariello, 2014). Interestingly, John C. Maxwell’s Minute With Maxwell word today was “Dedication.” Click here to watch the one minute video. Even though the teaching of Drucker this week was not on dedication, this spoke to me because I believe that our organizations must be dedicated to our team members’ achievement and ability to make meaningful contributions. The school system I lead right now needs to do a much better job of this and we are working very hard at this. I believe we need a leadership progression and training program. We should working side by side with those we lead to answer the questions: What should I contribute?; Where and how can I have results that make difference?; and, What should my contribution be? In Drucker’s view, these were questions that the person looking for a position should answer, but I believe we must help them answer these at all phases; from interviewing to job placement, to competency/leadership building.
The questions Drucker suggested a potential employee should ask of the organization are worth noting. I would also argue that these are questions that the organization, school, or business should be asking of itself as to whether they are providing (Maciariello, 2014). Here are the questions:
– Are you learning enough?
– Are you challenged enough?
– Does the organization make use of your strengths or what you can do?
– Does the organization make use of your strengths or what you can do?
– Does the organization constantly challenge and make you more ambitious in terms of contribution?
– Are you actually suffering from creative discontent?
Interestingly, Drucker talked about positive contentment and negative contentment. He argued that contentment was for six year olds. Thirty year olds should not be content because achieving great results should be hard to achieve and will be uncomfortable. At the same time, however, we must provide the environment where the results are meaningful. I love a quote in the book from Drucker because it is a school example where he says a team member should be saying: “We have that enormous job here in the new school… and we are recruiting faculty and so I spend all my weekends with prospective faculty people (Maciariello, 2014, p. 10).” This person is certainly challenged positively because they have responsibility to mobilize, challenge, and grow human resources. Let me tell you, from personal experience, taking over and turning around a school is anything but comfortable and is very hard work. But, it is extremely rewarding and, I believe, very fun work. It was very rewarding when a couple of people, one of them an Indiana State Board of Education member, said to me, “You should be very proud of providing the leadership for Emmerich Manual High School to be removed from the “F” list.” Let me tell you, I am, but I also always want to recognize the accomplishment took dedication from many more team members than me. There were many more who did much more heavy lifting than me and they were dedicated to the opportunity for achievement and making a meaningful contribution.
Another piece to this is very important. “Knowledge workers must take responsibility for managing themselves (Maciariello, 2014, p. 11).” Our team members, as well as ourselves, must take responsibility for developing ourselves. We need to seek feedback and feedback analysis. Concentration should be on areas of high skill and competence. It takes far more energy and farm more work to improve from mediocrity to first rate performance than it takes to improve from first rate performance to excellence.
Take a little time and reflect on where you are as an individual and where the organization you are a member of is in terms of dedication to every person having the opportunity to achieve and make a meaningful contribution. I know we have some work to do in this area. We have extremely talented individuals, but we need to make sure we are developing our bench strength, to use an athletic analogy, to have our future leaders ready to lead from within. REMEMBER: Opportunities do not come according to your schedule. Your job is to be prepared to recognize and seize opportunities as they come.
Reference
Maciariello, J. A. (2014). A year with Peter Drucker: 52 weeks of coaching for leadership effectiveness. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
Are You An Inukshuk?
Last October I was in Calgary, Alberta Canada to speak at a conference. While there I did some studying of the history of the area. In my studies I found that the original people of the region were called Inuit. The Inuit live throughout most of the Canadian Arctic and subarctic. The Inuit are a culturally similar indigenous peoples. Because of the vast openness and size of the arctic and subarctic regions of Canada I learned that the Inuit people would build what are called Inukshuks. I had the chance to get a Inuit hand carved Inukshuk while in Calgary. My carving is proudly displayed in my office and pictured at the beginning of this post. When I learned the story behind the Inukshuk I put it in a prominent place in my office as a reminder of how important coming together as a team is. The Inukshuk are a symbol of the human spirit. They recognize our ability to succeed with others, where we would fail alone. They remind us of our need to belong to something greater than ourselves. They reinforce our ability to commit to common goals.
Inukshuk, pronounced in-ook-shook, are stone monuments erected in the image of humans. One of their purposes was to communicate direction in the harsh and desolate Arctic. They would also mark places of good hunting, food supply, shelter, or safety. As such they were a tool for survival, and symbolic of the the unselfish acts of a nomadic people – the Inuit – who built them as signposts to make the way easier and safer for those who followed. The hands of many and the efforts of an entire group were required to build these massive stone sculptures. They are the result of a consensus of purpose, of focused action by a group united in its goal and labour. The Inukshuk are the product of cooperation, teaching us that as good as our individual efforts may be, together we can do even greater things.
As a person who considers himself a trailblazer the Inukshuks have a special meaning. To me these structures stand for: Someone was here. you are on the right path. As leaders it is important for us to be able to put our teams at ease by letting them know,’hey I’ve been there, we’ve got this, and it will be o.k.’ This is why I believe that leaders that have had specific experiences have an obligation to take on responsibilities where they are helping and influencing others through tough situations. I actually blogged about this in a post entitled “Deer In The Highlights.” Click here to read that post.
Each stone is a separate entity. Each supports, and is supported by, the one above and the one below it. No one piece is any more or less important than another. Its strength lies in its unity. Its significance comes from its meaning as a whole. What is true about the Inukshuk is true about people. Each individual entity alone has significance. As part of a team each of us supports, and is supported by, another. We are united by our common goals, and together we are part of a greater whole. The stones which make up the Inukshuk are secured through balance. Just as it is important for us to carefully choose and develop our team members’ complimentary skills The stones of the Inukshuk are chosen for how well they fit together. The symbolism is so amazing here. We, as leaders, need our teams to mesh and fit together in order to stand strong and complete the vision and mission intended. Looking at the structure it can be easily seen that the removal of even one stone will destroy the integrity of the whole. So, too, with a team. Each individual in a team is necessary for the realization of the team’s purpose. The removal of even one person will result in the weakening of the structure. What holds the team together is the balance – the complementary nature of the individual skills
The Gift of Reading!
The inspiration for today’s post came from the text conversation which I have posted a picture of for you. What a great way to start your day, as a leader, to have someone who you consider to be a great friend and colleague text this to you. I had the tremendous honor to give Ambra Tennery her first job as an Agricultural Science teacher. Let me tell you, she was one of the greatest, if not the greatest. She now is providing awesome leadership with the National FFA Organization, but we stay in touch. Ambra obviously took my recommendation of the book How The World Sees You and is turning it into personal professional growth. As leaders it is so important that we post, tweet, and have individual conversations about those things that are influencing our leadership growth and serving as catalysts for leadership development. Here’s a picture of the very last text in the series:
I am showing the image of that text not to brag, but to show the importance and power of what we do as leaders and mentors every day. I heard my favorite basketball coach, Albert Hendrix, make a comment (actually he yelled it to his players!) last night in a Lebanon High School game that really stuck with me. He said (yelled), “Value every possession!” In that context he meant to make sure that every time we had the ball that we needed to play as a team to score. By the way, Lebanon won the game. But, as I thought about it we need to do the same as leaders, teachers, mentors, and coaches. Every time we have the opportunity to influence others we need to value that possession. Never forget, leadership is influence.
Let’s dig deeper into this idea of recommending books.
Do book recommendations from peers really make that much difference in our book-buying habits? What about posting a review or reflection on your blog? Another great way to review is on Barnes & Noble or Amazon reviews. Twitter has also become a great way to recommend books. Or, the power of giving someone a book you have just finished? I would argue all of these are very powerful today, and are all things we as leaders should be doing. If we truly believe the statement that ‘Leaders are Readers’ then we need to be doing all of the above. It’s a leadership obligation!
In talking to an individual on our team this past week, she said she doesn’t pay attention to general advertisements about books. Instead she only looks at the reviews of people who’ve already read the book and bases her decision solely upon what readers are saying. Her comment really got me thinking about the power of recommendations. I know when I going to put an app on my phone or iPad, for example, if the ratings are not good I won’t do it. Therefore, we have a leadership obligation to take the time to rate books and make comments on the books we read. It does not matter if it is on GoodReads, Amazon, or Audible; we need to be doing it. I have to do a better job of taking time to do this to. I am including a picture here in the post of a recent recommendation I did for Sally Hogshead’s book How The World Sees You.
Additionally, I have also posted blogs about this book as well. ‘Rudolph and Elf Fascinating Leadership’ and ‘Just a Kiss of Leadership.’ Click Byron’s Babbles to read those two posts.
Reviews and recommendations are not new, but certainly a powerful marketing tool in the online world. Most of us trust the word of mouth from other ordinary people like us. I recently saw this statistic: 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 14% trust advertisements. Think about it, we really did not need the data to affirm this. Did we? We look at the comments of other consumers, and then we make our purchases accordingly. It’s true for everything from furniture to TV’s, from comforters to curtains. And, yes, it’s VERY true for books too.
As I said, I believe we have an obligation to promote books that have enabled professional growth in us. One of the most powerful ways to do this is to make a personal and individual recommendation to friends, family members, and those we coach, mentor, and lead. As you know from previous posts I always give a copy of every book that I read to someone who I believe will get value from it. So, for example, last year I read 66 books and gave 66 books to others to read. Now, do I know whether they read them? No, but it is important to do so and I know that many did because I get feedback from them. If you want to read more about what I’ve done to get books that have influenced me into the hands of others, click iRead Because iLead. Interestingly, in his book Eleven Rings, Phil Jackson talks about picking a book each year and giving it to his players to read based on their needs. I was motivated to continue my practice after reading this! Would you read a book someone personally gave you?
So what do you think? Have you ever been swayed into buying a book after reading a blog review or Amazon review? Do you watch what others are reading and saying about books on Twitter? Would you make sure you read a book that someone personally gave you and report back to them? Which influences you more—peer recommendations or advertisements? And why? Don’t forget it is a leadership obligation to give others the gift of reading!
Be Consistent, Not Clever!
I am very excited about a new book I started reading this morning. It will actually take me all year to read it. The book is A Year With Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness by Joseph A. Maciariello. From the title I am sure you understand why I said it was going to take me a year to read the book. It is set up to take the year with 52 lessons, one for each week. I am dedicating time each Sunday in 2015 to study the lesson for the week. Each week I am also going to do a reflection post in this blog – I will post the picture of the book so you will know it is the reflection on my year-long book read.
Actually, I found this book because of the inspiration of one of my 2015 reread books. You will remember I have committed to rereading 12 books (one each month) that I have already read. My first reread book for 2015 was Turn The Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders by L. David Marquet. I have written and tweeted a great deal about this book and believe lessons learned have had some of the greatest impact on my latest successes as a leader as any professional growth exercise I have done. I will be doing a post about my fourth reread of this book later in the month. However, in the book Marquet references learning from the teachings of Peter Drucker. I have read some of Drucker’s work and because of my affiliation with the American Society for Quality and the American Society for Quality Education Division I have been exposed to a great deal of his work. So, I decided I was going to find a Drucker book to read and gain more insight. Off to Barnes and Noble I went to get a Starbucks and look through the books. Right away I found the book that I believe Maciariello wrote just for me (even though I have never met him I am sure he wrote it just for me!). Amazingly, in doing the first week’s reading I found some correlation between Marquet and Drucker. It turns out leaders are readers! Who’d of thought?
The connection I found between Marquet and Drucker right away was the idea of empowerment. Marquet talks about empowerment just being a word and you can’t just tell those you lead they are empowered. We must, as leaders, develop everyone in our organizations to be effective based on competence and trust. Without this competence and trust all we really have are what Drucker referred to as “functionaries” (Maciariello, 2014, p. 4). In other words just going through the motions and doing what they are told to do. Empowerment is really a delegation of authority. Marquet described, however, that delegation alone is not the answer. We must also be committed to increasing the technical knowledge of those on the team. As Marquet said, “When authority is delegated, technical knowledge takes on greater importance at all levels” (Marquet, 2013). He went on to say, “Control without competency is chaos” (Marquet, 2013). I love this quote because it drives home the point that leaders must consistently provide an environment of professional growth that builds the competency of all in our organizations. This means that leaders cannot be self serving.
Another point in this week’s reading was the idea that to be a leader you must have followers. This is much easier said than done. For this to happen you must get things done and you must have the trust of those you lead. Again, sounds easy but in reality is very tough to achieve. “Trust is built on communication and mutual understanding.” “To achieve mutual understanding you must understand what information your colleagues need from you to perform their function, and they must understand what you need from them” (Maciariello, 2014, p.6). This is where the consistency comes in. In other words what I say and what I do must be congruent. This is an area we must all continually work on.
There are four questions in the “Practicum-Prompts” section of the weekly lesson that really jumped out at me. I will close by sharing them with you and telling you that I am going to print these out and post them at my desk and use them as a barometer for my leadership in the coming weeks and months. These questions are on page 8 (Maciariello, 2014):
Is the authority of the leadership group in your organization grounded in responsibility, integrity, and service?
Does it bring out whatever strength is present in each person?
Does it foster a sense of community and citizenship?
What can you do enhance the legitimacy of the leadership group in your area?
I know right now I need to really work on bringing out the strengths and building the technical knowledge of all I serve. I find that this is very easy to do with some and extremely tough with others. Have you noticed there are many individuals (I include myself in this category) that are “sponges?” They want to learn everything. These individuals are easy to work with. The individuals I need to spend more time with are the ones that believe they have arrived and know everything already. After my study this morning, I believe the answer to working with these individuals is to truly developing the sense of community and citizenship. This will in turn bring legitimacy to their leadership.
Remember, it’s about being consistent. You do not need to be clever!
References
Maciariello, J. A. (2014). A year with Peter Drucker: 52 weeks of coaching for leadership effectiveness. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
Marquet, L. D. (2013). Turn the ship around!: A true story of turning followers into leaders. New York, NY: Penguin Group.
Group Intelligence
My first book read of 2015 has been a great one. I am reading Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson. During his storied career as head coach of the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Phil Jackson won more championships than any coach in the history of professional sports. I have taken a great deal of notes during the reading of this book. One thing that has really jumped out at me though is the idea of what Jackson calls, “group intelligence.” Many also call this collective intelligence. When we form teams we commit to work together for a common goal.
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” –Phil Jackson
Jackson stated: “Basketball is a sport that involves the subtle interweaving of players at full speed to the point where they are thinking and moving as one… a powerful group intelligence emerges that is greater than the coach’s ideas or those of any individual on the team.” Really, coach and leader are interchangeable terms in this quote. One thing I’ve learned is that the only way to lead any school or organization with great success and scale is to build a great team. No matter how smart, talented, driven, or passionate you are, your success as a leader depends on your ability to build and inspire a team. A successful leader is one who can inspire his or her team members to work better together toward a common vision and goals.
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” –Michael Jordan
What we know as an individual is actually a dynamic collection of a lifetime interactions and knowledge sharing with all those we have collaborated with. Collective intelligence strongly contributes to the shift of knowledge and power from the individual to the collective. In education we have been modeling this with professional learning communities and the way educators are learning to participate in knowledge cultures outside formal learning settings. To be successful we must continue to embrace and find ways to make a a culture of group intelligence common place.
Reading Reminds You
True professionals want to learn, and the most common way they search for new knowledge is by reading articles and books by successful leaders, educators, educational leaders, athletic team coaches, politicians, military leaders, business owners, marketers, and entrepreneurs. Leaders must be readers. Reading and learning from peers within, and outside of, your organization or industry enables you to grow as an employee, business owner, and leader in very distinct ways. Reading challenges us to new ways of thinking. It introduces us to research and tried and true ways of doing things. As Woodrow Wilson said: “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all I can borrow.” Books give us an open window into the minds and history of others. Finally, it reinforces some of our own thinking and beliefs and helps us to galvanize our own leadership values.
Furthermore, reading something you disagree with can have a big impact on your ability to think, both creatively and logically. As a leader it is so important to understand others’ views. This can, as stated earlier, help us to solidify our own values and also help us to empathize, build relationships with, and work with or lead others more effectively. Don’t forget, as Woodrow Wilson also taught us, great leaders can also change their minds when it is the right thing to do. Sometimes hubris causes us to think we know all the answers. Reading enables us to learn new ways of thinking and doing things.
Reading also give us the opportunity to interact with others.I have referenced articles and books I’ve read in countless conversations, not to sound intelligent or cool (some of what I read would accomplish the opposite), but to relate to those with whom I’m speaking. Many times I take notes and share them with my team. Reading can also spark debates with your team and can give you the knowledge to back up an idea you have or a decision you want to make.
I make it a habit to re-read specific books every year because I need constant reminders of the good things they’ve taught me. Whether you re-read the same book or article to remind you of concepts, or read content on time management and organization as a constant reminder to work on these things, reading is valuable because it keeps important concepts top of mind. This year I have set a goal and commitment to reread 12 of the most influential books in my library. I am going to reread one each month this year. I am also committed to write a post to this blog as a reflection of each of these books this month. Now, I guess I better get started selecting the 12 books for my 2015 reminders.
What are you committing to do for your 2015 reading professional growth?
Idea Bee
We have all seen honey bees flitting from plant to plant spreading pollen and gaining much needed nectar for producing honey. As you read this post I also want you to imagine yourself as the leader going from person to person pollinating ideas – being an “Idea Bee.” One mouthful in three of the foods you eat directly or indirectly depends on pollination by honey bees. The value of honey bee pollination to U.S. agriculture is more than $14 billion annually, according to a Cornell University study. Crops from nuts to vegetables and as diverse as alfalfa, apple, cantaloupe, cranberry, pumpkin, and sunflower all require pollinating by honey bees. But the bees’ importance goes far beyond agriculture. They also pollinate more than 16 percent of the flowering plant species, ensuring that we’ll have blooms in our gardens. Of course, there is also the honey. More than $100 million worth of raw honey is produced each year in the United States.
The honey bees interdependence with plants makes them an excellent example of the type of symbiosis known as mutualism, an association between unlike organisms that is beneficial to both parties. We must develop this same type of symbiosis between our customers (in my case students), our different departments, our suppliers, or those we supply. The honey bee is very much like those of us in education; They are imbued with true creative intelligence because their purpose is to produce work that is noble and useful. No matter what organization we lead, should that not be our greater purpose?
Just as the value of the activity of honey bees is important to our agriculture industry and food supply there is also another important leadership lesson that can be taken from the bees. This is the thought that we, as leaders, should imitate the honey bees and go from team or team member to team or team member and pollinate ideas that will go toward the vision and mission of the organization. I call this being an “Idea Bee.” Then we must back away and just as the plant is then responsible for creating the seed, our teams must be responsible for taking the idea through to action. It is not enough just to plant the idea though. As the “Idea Bee” we must also make sure that all of the other team members understand their role in carrying out that part of the vision, mission, or strategy. We must also make sure that our team members have the resources necessary and the technical knowledge to carry out the ideas. Many leaders forget the very import capacity building act of making sure there is the technical knowledge necessary to do the job. It is a very important part of our leadership duties. Without competency there is chaos.
Experiments at Cornell University in the 1990s showed honey bee colonies had striking group-level adaptations that improved foraging efficiency of colonies, including special systems of communication, and feedback control. This research revealed that evolution of honey bees has produced adaptively organized entities at the group level. Think about it. This could could not have happened without there being “Idea Bees” in the hive to make this happen.
We must as leaders be the “Idea Bee” and make sure we are giving the support for the ideas to grow into flourishing organizational structure, processes, and products. We must also encourage all on our teams to become “Idea Bees” as well. Think about what your organization might look like if idea evolution were to produce adaptively organized entities at the group level.
Rudolph & Elf Fascinating Leadership
Every year, we see movies move their way into a regular rotation as part of the Christmas Season culture. Movies like…”It’s A Wonderful Life“, “Home Alone“, “Miracle On 34th Street“, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation“, “A Christmas Story“…and a whole bunch of others. These movies are touching, funny, and in some cases even action-packed…they’ve become holiday classics that we look forward to each year. This year, however, after having read Sally Hogshead’s incredible book, How The World Sees You: Discover Your Highest Value Through The Science of Fascination, and taking the Fascination Advantage Assessment, two of the Christmas classics really stuck out as having leadership lessons for us all.
Sally’s great work helps reveal who we are when we are at our best. She helps us to confidently and authentically communicate, based on our natural personality advantages. Most importantly, and the premise for this post, she teaches us that to be successful we don’t have to change who we are. We have to become more of who we are. When thinking about this two great Christmas movies come to mind as lessons of this. The first is Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.
From Rudolph we learn we must leverage our strengths. We tend to spend most of our time and energy at work, and in life, trying to shore up our weaknesses. If we focus on building upon our strengths and minimizing the instances our weaknesses come into play, we tap into more joy, engagement, and success in our work. Rudolph had a strength no other reindeer possessed, a bright red nose, and found success because he discovered and leveraged that strength. In other words, he learned how to fascinate by becoming more of who he was. Ultimately, he’s offered the opportunity to save Christmas by leading the reindeer team through the terrible blizzard with his shiny nose, and he says yes! Think about it. He says yes to Santa, the man who said Rudolph would never make the sleigh team. When Santa utters those famous words, “Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?” he replies with humble conviction, “It would be an honor, sir.”
The other great Christmas movie to learn leadership lessons from is Elf. In 2003, Jon Favreau directed an instant classic, not to mention my son’s favorite Christmas movie, that was immediately embraced as a yearly Christmas must-see. The story, if you haven’t seen the movie, is of a human (Will Ferrell), named Buddy, who was raised by elves in the North Pole…and eventually left to seek out his real father living in New York. He finds his father and there is a happy ending, but the important leadership lesson is at the beginning of the movie just before Buddy realizes he is not an elf.
Buddy makes a profound statement at the beginning of the movie that many of us have made in our own ways. “Why don’t you just say it…I’m the worst toy maker in the world. Seems like everyone has the same talents, except for me.” – Buddy the Elf. If this is not a field day for someone like Sally Hogshead and her “How To Fascinate Team,” I don’t know what is! Like Buddy, sometimes we feel like the odd person out on our teams or in our organizations. Especially when our ideas and talents don’t necessarily match up with the organizational mainstream. You can begin to feel a bit like an outlier. Buddy the Elf had incredible talents, but because he was trying to be someone he was not, he was not successful.
As leaders we have to be able to not only notice this happening to ourselves, but also make sure we strategically put the people who we serve strengths to work. To find ways for each person in the organization to contribute positively to their team, as individuals. When we do this, we not only avoid creating an echo chamber of thoughts and ideas, or group think, we allow the strengths, talents and diversity of our people and teams to be utilized to their highest benefit. For this to happen, it requires that a leader not only notice, but differentiate and intentionally engage the variety of strengths and talents around them.
So what have we learned from Rudolph and Buddy the Elf? Rudolph transformed himself from a reindeer who lacked self-confidence to the leader of Santa’s sleigh team because he refused to let his assumed constraints hold him back, leveraged the unique strengths he possessed, prepared diligently, and took a risk when the opportunity presented itself. Buddy learned that we cannot be someone who we are not. We need to be more of who we are. Outstanding lessons for all of us this holiday season.
Wouldn’t it be great to have Sally Hogshead and her team way in on what they think the How To Fascinate Anthems of Rudolph and Buddy the Elf would be?
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
Gummi Bear University
Yesterday, on my way to northwest Indiana to deliver some Christmas gifts to some of our school families that had extra needs for the holidays I stopped at one of my favorite places to pick up some candy baskets to add to the gifts. Nothing says you care like a basket of chocolate and Gummi Bears from Albanese Candy Company in Merrillville, Indiana.
Of course I had to have a bag of Gummi Bears for me to munch on for the drive as well. As I was driving I got to thinking about how Gummi Bears are made. Actually, I got to thinking about how I did not how Gummi Bears are made. So, of course, my personal tutor, Google, helped out. Gummi Bears start as a liquidy solution of flavored gelatin and water. As you cool the solution and draw more water out of the Gummi Bears, they harden into the chewy texture you’re used to. Albanese Candy gets this mixture better than anyone because they have the best Gummi Bears in the world, no lie! Gelatin, is a chain-like molecule that can intertwine and form a solid-like matrix — that’s how Gummi Bears start as liquid, but solidify as water is removed. Can you tell I taught Food Science?
So, by now I’m a little disappointed that as a lifetime lover of Gummi Bears that I had never used them as a relevant connection to a chemistry lesson. Therefore, how about we take a look at how teachers might use the relevant context of Gummi Bears for a lab students can make a real world connection to?
One of the first labs you could do is to make two solutions: a gelatin solution and salt water. Both Gummi Bears and salt water are a mixture of things dissolved in water. When one material is dissolved in another, such as salt in water, the salt is known as the “solute” and the water is known as the “solvent”. With salt water, the solute is salt and the solvent is water. With Gummi Bears, the solute is gelatin, and the solvent is also water. Like Gummi Bears, salt water is a solution of water, but there is a lot less solute (by mass). Salt also cannot form interlocking chains like gelatin. That’s partially why salt water stays a liquid and the gelatin solution solidifies. However, because gelatin molecules are so much larger than salt ions, there may be many fewer (by number) gelatin molecules dissolved in the water. This size of molecules thus sets us up for some great lessons that students can see and experience in a real world context.
The reason numbers and size of molecules are important is because it turns out numbers of molecules play a big role in determining if your Gummi Bear will absorb water or not. This fact sets us up perfectly for a lab and a few great chemistry lessons. And, let’s face it, what student is not going to love doing labs where they get to work with Gummi Bears! So here is the scientific problem to start with: Why do Gummi Bears get bigger when placed in water, but not when placed in salt water?
If you put two solutions of water in contact with each other, water will tend to move from the solution with fewer molecules dissolved in it to the solution with more molecules in it. This is known as ‘osmosis.’ The force that pushes the water is called ‘osmotic pressure.’ With the Gummi Bear, if you put the Gummi Bear in a solution with very few molecules dissolved in it (like distilled water), the water will move into the Gummi Bear causing it to expand. If you put the Gummi Bear into a solution of water with many molecules of solute dissolved in it (more solute molecules than are in the Gummi Bear), then water will leave the Gummi Bear and move into the water. When water moves into the Gummi Bear, you can see the bear expand. However, since the Gummi Bear doesn’t shrink much when water leaves it, it appears the Gummi Bear stays the same.
Just to validate what I am telling you is true. I just did the lab. What is the old saying? “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Check out the picture of two of my blue raspberry Gummi Bears I experimented with (Note: No Gummi Bear was hurt during this experiment; but, many were eaten). Clearly, the Gummi Bear on the right is larger than the one on the left. This was after 30 minutes in distilled water.
So the last question to answer is if salt water has more solute molecules in it than the Gummi Bear (you know by your experiment that it does, but we can prove it with some math too). You can dissolve roughly 400g of salt (NaCl) in 1kg water at room temperature. That’s roughly 2/3 of a mole of salt molecules. Because a single molecule of gelatin weighs 10,000 times more than one of table salt, if you had the same mass of Gummi Bears as the salt solution (1 kg + 0.4 kg), or 1.4kg total, you would have only 1/25th of a mole. So the salt solution has around 10-20 times the number of molecules as the Gummi Bear. Because there are more solute molecules in the salt water, the water moves out of the Gummi Bear, and hence the Gummi Bear does not expand in salt water.
Isn’t science fun when we make it relevant and use a context we can relate to, like Gummi Bears? Think about this as you prepare lessons for second semester.
Hopefully, if you are a teacher you have found something here you can use, or it has helped you to think through how to make your lessons more real for your students. Finding ways to connect, extend, and challenge our students is the most exciting part of teaching in my opinion. The moe we can make the relevant contextual connections of school work to real life for our students, the greater the learning they will achieve.
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