Collaborative Decision-maker
engages individuals together in a group to solve problems, create synergy, and obtain more equitable and effective outcomes
Student Case Competition Team (Fall 2012)
As a sophomore I interviewed and was selected to be a member of a four-person student case competition team through the Staley School of Leadership Studies. The premise of the competition is that every team would receive the same case study, apply leadership theory to evaluate this real world adaptive challenge, frame a solution or course of action in a written brief, and then present a poster at the International Leadership Association conference. Before this competition, I had not met any of my teammates. When we were introduced to each other and handed our case study I think we were immediately presented with this tension of wanting and needing to take time to get to know one another, and also feeling the pressure of the deadline for the submission of our written brief. As a team, we had to make decisions about when, where, and how often to meet. We had to make decisions about how to spend our time together and how to spend our time apart. As a team we had to delegate responsibility and trust one another to carry our part. As four individuals we had to evaluate a case study, create space to share our ideas and interpretations, and then as a team, identify which leadership theories to apply and what course of action to suggest.
For each step of this process, it became increasingly real how important it was for each member to be bought in. I am reminded of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In order for us to really dig into the material and to function well as a team, it was important that our schedule allowed for everyone to meet their basic needs (food, rest, etc.). Additionally, it was important for every member to feel and believe that his or her voice and ideas were valued. If a member did not feel that he could meaningfully contribute to the discussion about which theories to apply, then he might be less likely later on to buy in if a particular theory is selected and less able to connect with and talk about that theory in the presentation. My experience on this team taught me that being a collaborative decision-maker does not mean just trying to get a majority vote on an agenda or choose the most efficient path, but instead really valuing the process and being genuinely curious about what others think and believe.
Foundations of Education Group Facilitation (Fall 2013)
During my junior year I was enrolled in the class, foundations of education, in which we studied the history of the United States education system and current issues. One of our major assignments for the semester was to co-facilitate a fifty-minute learning experience over a text. Each of my group members and I were responsible for reading our assigned text throughout the semester. Then, when we came together as a facilitation group it was our collective work to decide what key takeaways to share with our larger class and how to do so in the most effective and engaging manner. Taking the temperature at our first group meeting, I felt as if morale was pretty low. Our text was about standardized assessments and my peers seemed discouraged because a lot of the other facilitation topics had been more fun and exciting. As I asked questions about what each of my team members thought and as they spoke from past experiences and frustrations with standardized testing, we discovered a very important reality. The frustrations we were experiencing were not unique to us, in fact most of our classmates probably had similar experiences, and this was a source of relevance and motivation for change we could tap in to. This realization helped to change the energy of our facilitation group and our planning time together carried a sense of urgency and weight. As we believed that what we did mattered, my group members were no longer interested in just doing the minimum to get by and letting one person carry the brunt of the load. Instead, we were able to have conversations about strengths and passions and design our lesson and roles around these for maximum impact.
Facing Hunger Community Event and Book Release (Fall 2014)
The bulk of my work for my internship with the Facing Project was split into two parts, the publishing of the stories and the planning of a community event and book release. The mission of the Facing Project is “connecting people through stories to strengthen communities”. Publishing the book was a way to hear and share the stories of members of the Manhattan community who were facing hunger. However, in order to really connect people with the hopes of building a stronger community, we needed a time and space to allow for people to hear and respond to these stories. In determining what the actual program was going to look like on the day of the event, it was critical to prioritize details that mattered, that would contribute to the purpose. Something that my supervisor and I did early on in the planning stage was to call a meeting and invite others to brainstorm with us about what the event could be. Going into this meeting we knew that our event was going to be held at the Manhattan Arts Center and we knew that at least some of the stories were going to be shared in some format. We shared these basic details along with the mission of the Facing Project and then allowed people to ask questions and to just dream with us. We did not talk first about budgets or timelines or resources, but just asked what the event might be. Some important ideas that I took away from this meeting were 1) to be conscious of decorations that did not communicate a “celebration” of hunger but an awareness of it, 2) the opportunity and importance of collecting some kind of feedback or data, and 3) not seeing the event as the end of the road but as a continuing piece of the process. Collaborating with others, letting their ideas hold equal weight and pull as your own, is much messier and more time consuming than working independently, but it is worth it. I did not walk away from this meeting with “answers” or technical step-by-step directions, but I did walk away with insight and an increased vision of the purpose of the event and how different pieces might fight together to achieve our stated goals.