Friday, August 28, 2015

SL3 Ben

  • Chapter 8: Hunter lists three key steps for ongoing change: foundation, feedback, and friction.  In our FRC team, who sets the foundation?  Who provides the feedback and how?  Who provides the friction and how?
    • In the case of robot building, I think the design and fabrication team would set up a foundation. The rest of the team would provide feedback, where there can be improvements to make their own jobs easier. Friction comes from everyone, there will always be some friction; unless we're in a vacuum, which is unlikely. Hopefully, this year we will be mature and handle that friction in a more constructive manner.
  • Chapter 9: What are the satisfiers that get people to show up to robotics and exert at least minimum effort?  What are the specific motivators that push some students to work very hard for the team beyond simply being present?
    • I think one definite satisfier is the presence of their friends, people often go to simply hang out. A few more could be the challenge, the camaraderie, getting to build something, or escaping their house. A specific motivator could be prospect of acceptance into a top tier college, or cookies work for others.
  • Chapter 9: How much "hunger for excellence" do you think we have as a team?  In your view, are we shooting to be the best or trying to just be mediocre?
    • We are team stuck in mediocrity. Many of us want to be a great team, but don't know how to get there. Some don't care as much, and tend become distractions for the motivated ones.
  • Chapter 9: What will you do this year to help us build community in our FRC team?
    • Avoiding the blame game when things go wrong. Find something for everyone to do, even if you have it's a stretch. Remembering to be patient is difficult, but necessary for a happy community.
  • Chapter 9: We, which includes you, are the leadership core of the team.  This may mean we serve as product owners and scrum masters.  However, it means that we serve as caretakers of our team's greatest assets -- our people.  What kinds of questions will you ask in conversation with your teammates to enable you to understand their needs and serve them?
    • What do you need help with? Is there anything you aren't sure about?
  • Summary
    • I've learned to keep everyone motivated, be a selfless leader, and always listen to feedback. Never be satisfied with your own performance, and always strive to be better.

SL3 Bryan

  • Chapter 8: What is the coach's role in developing leadership capacity in the team?  A mentor's role?  A student's role?

The coach's role is to help us learn to become leaders and to make courses for the team to become better at leading. A mentor's role is to guide the students and help them become the best leaders they can. A student's role is to guide other students and help them learn and build the robot successfully.

  • Chapter 8: Hunter lists three key steps for ongoing change: foundation, feedback, and friction.  In our FRC team, who sets the foundation?  Who provides the feedback and how?  Who provides the friction and how?

In our FRC team many people set the foundation like our founding students, our coach, and our mentors. Mostly, the students provide feedback by telling other students, or mentors, or even our coach about problems that should be faced and how we need to fix them. Anyone can provide friction by complaining or being upfront about a problem.

  • Chapter 9: What are the satisfiers that get people to show up to robotics and exert at least minimum effort?  What are the specific motivators that push some students to work very hard for the team beyond simply being present?

The satisfiers could be food, fun, or even just hanging out with friends. The motivators are the things like scholarships and even just just having a complete robot that can beat other teams in the tasks it was designed to do.

  • Chapter 9: How much "hunger for excellence" do you think we have as a team?  In your view, are we shooting to be the best or trying to just be mediocre?

I think that we have a good amount of hunger, but we just have a good amount. Nothing too extraordinary we just want to win. I feel like we are just trying to be mediocre, I mean like we try but I feel like we don't go as hard as we can to win.

  • Chapter 9: What will you do this year to help us build community in our FRC team?

I will try to help anyone who needs it and will do my best to help other sub-teams. I think, that if we all pitch in to other sub-teams we will be able to build a fantastic robot.

Summary:

I learned about how everything is interdependent on each other for learning and for leading. I also learned that we need to become more excited in order to become the best we can be and we have to shoot for the moon.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

SL3 Aren

  • Chapter 8: Hunter lists three key steps for ongoing change: foundation, feedback, and friction.  In our FRC team, who sets the foundation?  Who provides the feedback and how?  Who provides the friction and how?
In the past mentors have set the foundation.  Hopefully the team leader will set it next time.  Last year the feedback was lacking, but the entire team, mentors and students, provided it to each other verbally.  Once again the entire team provides friction with our interactions.  
  • Chapter 9: What are the satisfiers that get people to show up to robotics and exert at least minimum effort?  What are the specific motivators that push some students to work very hard for the team beyond simply being present?
Some satisfiers are building stuff, solving problems, resolving problems, Ultimate Frisbee breaks, and of course food.  Some motivators that I see pushing people is we only have 6 weeks, wanting to win, and enjoying what they are doing.
  • Chapter 9: How much "hunger for excellence" do you think we have as a team?  In your view, are we shooting to be the best or trying to just be mediocre?
As a team I would say we are somewhere in the middle. We have different people who want different things from robotics.  Some want to win, some enjoy working, and a few want screw around, but we all want a winning robot.  As a team I would say we want the best robot but don't have infrastructure or work environment to do it.
  • Chapter 9: What will you do this year to help us build community in our FRC team?
I will try to implement Scrum and other methods that should reduce the amount of debating and increase efficiency.  One of these methods is testing many versions and modular assembly scrum teams.
  • *Chapter 9: There is a list of summary bullet points on the last page.  Choose one that you think is most relevant to our team and talk about it.
"Find ways to make people's work more challenging, interesting, and rewarding."  One of the problems we had last year was not enough people had jobs or could work on something.  If we used a scrum board we could have time to test more ideas, we wouldn't have to many people on one project, and all this would happen faster.

Summary: I learned in order to improve yourself and others you must set the standard, get feedback, then provide friction to keep the change going.  Also I learned you should make peoples work enjoyable, recognize good performance, and give everyone a useful purpose to fulfill.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Nate SL3

Chapter 8: Continuous improvement is back, but this time about you personally.  Describe a CI loop that would lead to measurable, lasting improvement in your leadership.
Assert, Inform, Reflect, Adjust.  Assert-let people know that I am there as a leader and to help.  Inform-tell them what needs to be done and help them along with any tasks.  Reflect-once things are finished up ask those I led how things went, where we are, and what I can do better for them as a leader.  Fix any mistakes I made leading.

Chapter 9: What are the satisfiers that get people to show up to robotics and exert at least minimum effort?  What are the specific motivators that push some students to work very hard for the team beyond simply being present?
For minimum effort we give them something to do and giving them food for showing up.  For maximum effort we allow them to get involved in something they enjoy and take pride in doing it well.

Chapter 9: We, which includes you, are the leadership core of the team.  This may mean we serve as product owners and scrum masters.  However, it means that we serve as caretakers of our team's greatest assets -- our people.  What kinds of questions will you ask in conversation with your teammates to enable you to understand their needs and serve them?
One question: what can I do better as a leader?

Chapter 9: How much "hunger for excellence" do you think we have as a team?  In your view, are we shooting to be the best or trying to just be mediocre?
We have the hunger down, but it is more for food than excellence.  All jokes aside I think we dream of excellence, but we are not all dedicated enough to be excellent.  If we want to improve we need people to show more passion and pride in what they do.

Chapter 9: What will you do this year to help us build community in our FRC team?
I will do my best to motivate my teammates to improve in all aspects of our team, from communication to fabrication, everything needs to be improved for us to be successful.

End with a summary of what you learned.
I learned how to apply these strategies into our team.  This will allow for us leaders to improve our whole team and become very competitive.

Monday, August 24, 2015

Jacob SL3

  • Chapter 8: What is emotional intelligence (EI)?  In what ways are you strongest in EI?  How do you get EI "smarter"?
Emotional intelligence is essentially all of your interpersonal skills combined.  My EI strong point would probably have to be empathy since whenever I'm angry or in an argument with someone I try to see the argument from their perspective and to understand why they are disagreeing or angry.
  • Chapter 8: What is the coach's role in developing leadership capacity in the team?  A mentor's role?  A student's role?
The coaches role in developing leadership in a team is to demonstrate good leadership qualities (or at least improvements in them) and encourage students to learn about and develop these qualities.  A mentors role is similar to the coaches in that a mentor must demonstrate these qualities for the students as well.  A mentor however can help students develop their leadership ability a little more efficiently since there are simply more of them and they can spend more time with the students.  A students role is to learn leadership and other skills from the mentors and coach and then to try to implement the leadership tactics.
  • Chapter 9: What are the satisfiers that get people to show up to robotics and exert at least minimum effort?  What are the specific motivators that push some students to work very hard for the team beyond simply being present?
I think one of the main satisfiers of our team is that you get to spend time being social.  If our team were to be all work all the time people would be less likely to volunteer to do it.  Another satisfier would be the fact that team members get to see the robot in action.  I know that on other teams this isn't a given due to transportation issues, but for our team at least it supplies a great goal to work towards.  As far as motivators go, personal recognition and a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the task really get people to work harder.
  • Chapter 9: How much "hunger for excellence" do you think we have as a team?  In your view, are we shooting to be the best or trying to just be mediocre?
I think that our team is trying extremely hard to become excellent at everything.  We have been inspired by the change in performance from last year and we want to keep improving and make it farther in the competitions.  We really are trying to shoot for the best and, although I don't know when, as long as we put that energy to use in the right places we will accomplish a lot.  For instance we WILL go to St. Louis this year.
  • Chapter 9: There is a list of summary bullet points on the last page.  Choose one that you think is most relevant to our team and talk about it.
Seek out best practices and implement them- Our team has already begun to implement this goal through this very activity and I believe this is because of its importance to our team.  Last year we had a large number of issues pop up due to laziness, inefficiency, lack of communication, and a bunch of other factors.  If we implement better practices and really make them work, we should be able to multiply our last years improvement greatly.
  • Summary
In this final section of the book I learned about the way to encourage people to improve their leadership skills, the difference between satisfiers and motivators, and things such as the reasons to demand excellence.  All in all I think that this book had many great insights on how leadership should work and how to become a great leader.  In the overall course, I think the book I learned the most from and enjoyed the most was definitely the one on scrum, but I think that all of the books were relevant and useful to what we hope our team will be.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Jacob SL2

  • Chapter 4: When is the last time you participated in pairing rather than bringing issues back to the whole group?  What conditions and decisions led you to do it?
The most recent time I participated in pairing was actually at my job.  One lifeguard who used to work there would always show up late to shifts and, when she was there, would do the bare minimum she could.   Whenever there were extra guards on shift and she was out in the chair we would complain about how she never did anything.  No one ever talked to her about this and I'm still not sure she even realized there was a problem. 
  • Chapter 4: Four communication styles are aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.  What is the ideal form that we should use?  What have we primarily used in the past?
The ideal style of communication is assertive since it gets to the point without causing any discomfort or harm to the person on the receiving end.  We have primarily used the passive communication style in the past since it is a lot easier to just let things slide and not step on anyone's toes rather than deal with the problems when someone is angered or offended.
  • Chapter 5: This chapter talks a lot about "empathetic listening".  Explain in your own words what the means and why it is so important.
According to Dictionary.com Empathy means "the psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.  Put Simply to empathize is to try to understand what someone else is feeling; therefore empathetic listening is listening where you are actively trying to understand what they are seeing and where they are coming from based on their point of view.  This is extremely important because it is impossible to truly understand why someone is doing or saying something if you have no idea where they are coming form.
  • Chapter 7: What is the difference between character and personality?  Why is it relevant to leadership?
Someones character is the way they deal with things automatically.  It is the part of them that doesn't always show when things are going easy, but when a challenge arises it becomes quite clear.  Personality on the other hand is just how people behave towards other on an everyday basis.  Personality can be influenced by ones character, but people can pretend to have any type of personality.  This is relevant to leadership since hard situations often lead to quick and difficult choices and one's character is what determines the choices one makes in those situations.
  • Chapter 7: Elizabeth said "My older friends are like they were 30 years ago, only more so".  As a high school student, what implications does this have for you?
As a high school student who is probably only approaching the 1/4 point on my lifespan (based on the national average being around 80) the overall meaning is that what I do now will have a resounding affect on my future.  The choices that I or other students make now will become habits and will eventually develop our character and strength rather good or bad.
  • Summary
I've learned about the different styles of communication, how leadership is influenced by character, the difference between character and personality, the definition of love(the verb), and a bunch of other things useful to being a servant leader.

SL2 Ben

  • Chapter 4: Describe the difference between love, the feelings, and love, the choice.
    • Love the feeling is a whimsical emotion that takes no commitment. Love the choice takes effort and work. You have to accept nothing is perfect and build up from there.
  • Chapter 4: Four communication styles are aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.  What is the ideal form that we should use?  What have we primarily used in the past? 
    • Assertive, because it gets the message through in a timely manner without being attacking or aggressive. We have tended to be passive-aggressive. We might not directly say what we needed done, but simply complained that it wasn't done.
  • Chapter 5: Imagine that two students are chasing each other with pool noodles at a scrimmage event.  What does accountability look like in this situation?  Who should know about the event?  Who should provide the accountability?  Why is it necessary to hold individuals accountable?
    • Accountability would be in the form of negative consequences, be it a reprimand or having to sit in a corner for five minutes. The leaders of the team should know about the event and though the coach should probably be the one providing accountability. It is a slippery slope once someone is given control over another person, and I doubt a student would be capable of handling it properly. It is necessary to hold them accountable because that type of behavior is unacceptable. It makes the team look immature, they could get in other peoples' way, bump into someone, or anger a stranger.
  • Chapter 7: Elizabeth said "My older friends are like they were 30 years ago, only more so".  As a high school student, what implications does this have for you?  OR As a mentor, how have your past choices built good and bad habits in your life?
    • This pretty much means people stay the same. People travel along the same path as they always have and don't change much. habits you have now will stick with you for the rest of your life.
  • Chapter 7: Change is usually initiated by friction / discomfort / pain / suffering.  If you want to change your habits, where will the discomfort come from that motivates your change?
    • The discomfort would come from knowing that you aren't being the best person you can be. You recognize your own flaws and realize that that isn't who you want to be, and your flaws are easily erased through simple effort.
  • Summary
    • I've learned that leadership is influenced by your habits, character, personality, and by the love you show to your peers. Also, it's important to not be a snide commentator when direct communication is better for the soul, and efficiency. 

SL2

Chapter 4: Of the following attributes, patience, kindness, humility, respect, selflessness, and forgiveness, which one is your greatest strength?  What kinds of choices do you make that makes you stronger in this area?
I'm am probably best with forgiveness.  I am able to get past things and get on with my life.  I think this because I tend to forget what they did or I realize that they are not like that always.

Chapter 4: Four communication styles are aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.  What is the ideal form that we should use?  What have we primarily used in the past?
We should use assertive.  This gets duties said and tells the person what is expected.  In the past we have been passive and let it slide when we slack off.

Chapter 5: Imagine that two students are chasing each other with pool noodles at a scrimmage event.  What does accountability look like in this situation?  Who should know about the event?  Who should provide the accountability?  Why is it necessary to hold individuals accountable?
The two students who were chasing each other and whoever was in charge of them should be held accountable.  This should be brought to the attention of the leaders on the team to ensure these actions do not continue.  It is necessary to hold these people accountable because these actions are unsafe and can get the whole team in trouble and leaders need to make sure subordinates are under control.

Chapter 7: Elizabeth said "My older friends are like they were 30 years ago, only more so".  As a high school student, what implications does this have for you?  OR As a mentor, how have your past choices built good and bad habits in your life?
This shows that people do not really change.  Usually people will continue to be the same because that it who they are as a person.  Habits we have today will become harder and harder to shake, so bad habits should be solved before it is too hard to get rid of.

Chapter 7: Change is usually initiated by friction / discomfort / pain / suffering.  If you want to change your habits, where will the discomfort come from that motivates your change?
The discomfort will come from failure.  Failure makes you realize the way you are going doesn't work and you need to find a new way to work that will be successful.

End with a summary of what you learned.
I learned the importance of various parts of leadership.  It is important to treat those you lead in a positive way, and make sure that people keep professional and get their work done.  I also learned the importance of making sure your habits are good ones and why people change.

Monday, August 17, 2015

Braxton SL3

Alright, home stretch. Here we go...

Chapter 8: What is emotional intelligence (EI)?  In what ways are you strongest in EI?  How do you get EI "smarter"?

EI is essentially the lump sum of all of your social and interpersonal skills, and it is practically necessary for successful leadership. I'm sure exactly what my strongest areas of EI are, so it's probably not self-awareness. Instead, it might be habit-breaking, as I've recently had to break several old habits to improve my leadership abilities, and I at least like to think it wasn't too difficult, but I don't know. In order to get EI smarter, go through the three F's, and especially the feedback part. You need to know how you're doing. Then, you need to make an active change in your personality to improve your EI.

Chapter 8: What is the coach's role in developing leadership capacity in the team?  A mentor's role?  A student's role?

On our team, our coach's role in developing leadership capacity is producing courses such as the one we are enrolled in now in order to develop our leadership abilities. He also, in addition with the mentors, mentor students and teach them not only technical skills, but also teach leadership skills by example. Students should act as proverbial sponges, and absorb this knowledge, and then apply themselves. They should educate themselves and then put those skills into practice.

Chapter 8: Hunter lists three key steps for ongoing change: foundation, feedback, and friction.  In our FRC team, who sets the foundation?  Who provides the feedback and how?  Who provides the friction and how?

On our FRC team, the foundation is set by several people. FIRST founders, such as Woody Flowers and the glorious Dean Kamen, other teams and their journeys, as well as our coach, mentors, and founding students. All of these people and organizations contributed the foundation our team was founded upon. The feedback is provided by students and mentors. They do this verbally, by email, or even passive-aggressive grumbling. Often, we voice our concerns to each other, and then bring it to Pethan if there is sufficient cause to. This also can contribute to the friction, as some team members and mentors aren't afraid to be up front about problems, and possible solutions to these problems.

Chapter 9: What are the satisfiers that get people to show up to robotics and exert at least minimum effort?  What are the specific motivators that push some students to work very hard for the team beyond simply being present?

One of the satisfiers that encourage lazy students is a lack of discipline. If a student isn't doing anything, or is playing video games, or is goofing off, what happens to them? Nothing more than a quick talk and maybe a task. There's no detriment to simply continue what they were doing, day in and day out. Now, I'm not saying that we should start flogging people, quite the opposite. We should treat the cause rather than the symptom, and give them a purpose and a motivator. Ideally, we shouldn't have to take away iPads or yell at people. They would be trustworthy enough to instead work, and then play games on their own time, or during a (not overly frequent) break. Some motivators would be the obvious, like scholarships, or the more abstract, like a sense of belonging and pride in their work, which tends to be on the high end of quality.

Chapter 9: How much "hunger for excellence" do you think we have as a team?  In your view, are we shooting to be the best or trying to just be mediocre?

On our team, I feel like we're starting to really find out how good we really are, and our hunger before that definitely contributed. We we're pretty shocked to see how well we did this past year, as compared to 2014, and we now believe we can do even better. So I'd say we definitely strive for the best, even if that is sometimes forgotten in times of distraction.

Summary:

In this final section of reading, I learned about the more abstract of leadership, such as emotional intelligence, the three F's, satisfiers and motivators, and the hunger for excellence. It summed up a summer's worth of reading and this book, and this entire course has taught me a great deal about leadership styles and traits. Now, that I'm done, I think I'll celebrate Now that I'm done, I think I'll celebrate...

SL2 Bryan

  • Chapter 4: Describe the difference between love, the feelings, and love, the choice.

Love, as a feeling, is just an emotion that people feel towards other specific people. Love as a choice is something done for others because you love them, usually caring for employees.

  • Chapter 4: Four communication styles are aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.  What is the ideal form that we should use?  What have we primarily used in the past? 

The ideal form we should use is assertive. We should use that communication style due to the work that needs to be done. We need to be able to communicate in such a way that will tell people that they need to get to work in a polite, but strong way.

  • Chapter 5: "Love without discipline is not love at all."  Provide some insight into that statement.

If you love someone truly you would be willing to discipline them to better them. If something isn't fixed that could help someone to become a better person then you need to help that person reach that goal. 

  • Chapter 7: What is the difference between character and personality?  Why is it relevant to leadership?

Character is who you are and personality is how you act. This is relevant to leadership because you can have a different character than personality. At home, you may be a laid back person that doesn't really want to do work, but at school or robotics you could be working extremely hard and helping others with their work.

  • Chapter 7: Change is usually initiated by friction / discomfort / pain / suffering.  If you want to change your habits, where will the discomfort come from that motivates your change?

The discomfort can come from either your displeasure, another person's displeasure, or a decrease in productivity. All of these things can cause a change in work ethic to increase the specific person's productivity.

Summary:

I have learned that love is a very important thing in order to lead a group of people. Love can change how people work and how people act.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

SL1

Intro: Skip to the last page of the intro.  There are three questions.  The author suggests that if your answer is no to the questions, continuing is a waste of time.  If your answer is yes to each, please also explain WHY you are willing to go through this pain, because it will be painful if you want to truly be a better leader.
Answer:1.Yes, because if I need to change to be able to lead people I am willing too. Because when being a leader you have to sometimes make hard decides. But I want to be a better leader because I will help give me a chance to get more confidence or things and it will help people who I am leading to maybe one day be leaders too.
2.Yes, I think my ego can handle receiving feedback even though it can be painful. I am willing to go through this pain because I don't want others to feel it and I want to be the one to have to deal with it. I would do it because if it would make me a better leader then I will do it.
3. Yes, because if it all works something could be good of the out come but you will not know so it would be best to think that it will not end well. I would be willing to do it to close the gaps that are around and that need to be closed so thing can either move on and get better or it they don't get closed then they might get worse.
Chapter 1: The word "influence" comes up dozens of times in the first chapter.  Why does Hunter keep talking about it?
Answer:He keeps talking about it because you are influence by each person you see or meet everyday that. Overtime you start to get what they are doing and then you are too influencing others. It can be anything it could be just showing someone how to do something to saying things to a child to help them learn.

Chapter 2: In what places in your life have you earned authority?  How did you get it?
Answer:I have earned authority to do things that I would like to do. How I got it was when I got old enough I was allowed to do it. But I do know but haven't had one yet but a job. Over time you can earn authority by do good at your job but while doing that you don't do stuff you should do.

Chapter 2: What is a legitimate use of power by the leaders of a FRC team?  How often should this be used?
Answer:They should have enough power to do a few things but not enough for them to want to make them to abuse there power. I think it showed used when it needs to be.

Chapter 3: Hunter says that serving others is a choice.  Share a time where you made the choice to serve yourself as a leader and a time where you chose to serve others in your leadership role.  How did each work out?  How did each feel?
Answer:When doing projects it can very from each person but one project in history I was following the instructions of the person who decided that they would lead this group. I think that it worked out fine because they would of been a better leader than I think me because there are time that I am confidence enough to take charge but it happens that their are others that will do it.
Another project that I did someone first decided that they would like to lead it and I was ok with it but then over time they started asking me thing about what they should do or something like that so then I became the leader of the group without trying too. What might of caused to change for me to be the leader because I did come up with and idea for the project and they did like it. I think it worked out pretty good. How each felt I think is that they might of been ok with it because no one told me anything about me leading. But what might of been hard for them was when we were going to present something happened to me(nothing serious) and they got all confused and they keep coming into the room I was in to ask me some questions that they didn't know what do to.

Summary:
I think this book will help me figure out how to be a better leader and to help get the confidence that I really need. Even though it is just the first few chapters I have learned a few things that could help with leading others.

SL2 Aren

  • Chapter 4: Describe the difference between love, the feelings, and love, the choice.
The feeling of love is liking someone, but the choice of love is striving to make someone the best person they can be whether you like them or not.

  • Chapter 7: Elizabeth said "My older friends are like they were 30 years ago, only more so".  As a high school student, what implications does this have for you?  OR As a mentor, how have your past choices built good and bad habits in your life?
This means we should try our best to remove bad habits and replace them with good habits.  So in 30 years we will be even better people.

  • Chapter 5: "Love without discipline is not love at all."  Provide some insight into that statement.
The book defines love as being willing "to be attentive to the legitimate needs, best interests, and welfare of another".  This means if you truly love someone and have their best interests at heart you want them to be their best.  So you use discipline to make sure they keep striving for perfection.

  • Chapter 7: What is the difference between character and personality?  Why is it relevant to leadership?
Character is your core values and who you are.  Personality is how you show those qualities to others.  This is important to leadership because if you want to build influence you need to have good character and show it with the correct style(personality).  Even if your the nicest person ever if you have the wrong style you wont gain influence.

  • Chapter 5: This chapter talks a lot about "empathetic listening".  Explain in your own words what the means and why it is so important.
I think when you practice empathetic listening you devote every ounce of your attention to what the person is saying and then to remembering it.  This is important because the people you lead always have extremely valuable information to share with you.  Also this shows you care about them and it makes them feel useful.

Summary:
I learned the traits of a great leader and how to build influence by listening.  Also you should separate behavior from people by instead of saying your lazy, say you need to help more.  They can fix needing to help more,

Saturday, August 15, 2015

SL1 Aren Jorgensen

  • *Intro: Skip to the last page of the intro.  There are three questions.  The author suggests that if your answer is no to the questions, continuing is a waste of time.  If your answer is yes to each, please also explain WHY you are willing to go through this pain, because it will be painful if you want to truly be a better leader.
Simply put it is more painful and infinity more frustrating to be a bad leader.  The first reason being a bad leader stinks is cause as a peer leader you have very little power so no one listens unless they want to.  Two some will give you one chance to successfully lead and motivate and if you fail they will be donkeys to you for the rest of your life, and these people will probably join in two years.  Finally trying constantly push and pull people is no fun, the author says its hard but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  As put in scrum change or die.

  • Chapter 2: In what places in your life have you earned authority?  How did you get it?
I have earned authority in my scout troop.  I gained this authority by being kind, respectful, and never pulling seniority.  In our troop we vote in a head leader (SPL) every 6 months.  I got the position because the ten younger scouts saw me as a person who wouldn't abuse power and was a decent leader.

Chapter 1: Hunter says that leadership is a skill, not something many are born with.  Do you actually believe this?  Have you always believed this?  What evidence have you seen in your life to back up your response.

I believe leadership is definitely a skill.  I don't remember what I thought several years ago or if I even had an opinion, but I do remember scouts is when I realized it was a skill.  Over just six months I've seen people's leadership skills infinitely expanded and improved just by doing what seems right and getting some constructive feed back.  Anyone who says leadership isn't a skill should just try for a few weeks and they will soon think differently.


  • Chapter 1: The word "influence" comes up dozens of times in the first chapter.  Why does Hunter keep talking about it?
If you don't have influence you need to have followers who believe in a cause or use power, and power will soon scare away the best followers.  Then your left with the stubborn ones and can't get influence because you lost your one chance.

  • Chapter 3: Hunter says that serving others is a choice.  Share a time where you made the choice to serve yourself as a leader and a time where you chose to serve others in your leadership role.  How did each work out?  How did each feel?
A time when I served my self was when I let a person slip away from a job and did nothing about it because I had just spend a ridiculous amount of time pressuring them to do it.  I avoided conflict and made it harder in the long run because I had to stand in front of them baby sitting to make sure they didn't leave.  A time I served was when I made the stubborn ones do thinks no matter how much they resisted I was more stubborn unfortunately they never stopped trying to avoid work.  Neither produced and visible results and both made me feel frustrated and bad.

In summary:  I learned the difference between power and authority.  I already knew how to get influence from people and that it was better to lead with it.  The main thing I still don't know is how to convince people who only follow you if you let them slack off.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Ben SL1

Chapter 1: Explain the differences between leaders and managers.  Would product owners and scrum masters be leaders, managers, both, or neither?
                    Leaders are people that inspire. They get people to believe in something and to work for it. Managers simply organize and handle the manner in which people work. Scrum masters and product owners would be both, since they have to get people excited about working, and they also have to oversee peoples' jobs.
Chapter 1: Hunter says that leadership is a skill, not something many are born with.  Do you actually believe this?  Have you always believed this?  What evidence have you seen in your life to back up your response?
                    I do believe this to be true in most cases, but I also believe that someone can be born with the rough ability to lead, but needs help fine-tuning his leadership skills. A friend of mine had great focus and attention to detail, but he was always quiet. As he hung out with my rowdy and rambunctious group of friends and me, he started to become more vocal. I think this has developed him into a much better leader, though most of his leadership skills are simply innate.
 Chapter 1: The word "influence" comes up dozens of times in the first chapter.  Why does Hunter keep talking about it?
                    Influence is a key aspect of being a leader. To be an effective leader, you have to be able to influence your team even when they're low of spirit. You also want to have the right type of influence. People are much more willing to follow a friendly, guiding influence than an aggressive, punishment-based influence. 
Chapter 2: In what places in your life have you earned authority?  How did you get it?
                    Sadly, I can't think of any instances in which I was given an official title of authority, but when I'm babysitting my little cousins, it's understood that I have the authority. This is in part because their mother told them to heed my command, but also because, collectively, we recognized my superiority in the aspect of life experience and rational thought.
Chapter 2: What is a legitimate use of power by the leaders of a FRC team?  How often should this be used?
                    I believe in leaders should have the power to reassign people from task to task. Of course, this power shouldn't be used liberally, but when someone has been asked multiple times day after day to work on a task, to stay focused, they should be put on a different task since they are apparently incapable of doing that job. Again, this is a last resort. You would simply talk to them at first, reason with them and do all you can to help, but sometimes someone just isn't equipped to carry out a certain job, so assign the job to someone able to complete it. 
Summary
                    I learned about servant leadership and the difference between power and authority. Influence is pertinent, and leading and managing aren't the same thing.

Nate SL1

*Intro: Skip to the last page of the intro.  There are three questions.  The author suggests that if your answer is no to the questions, continuing is a waste of time.  If your answer is yes to each, please also explain WHY you are willing to go through this pain, because it will be painful if you want to truly be a better leader.
Yes, I am willing to work to improve myself to better the team.
Yes, I can take feedback.  I am willing to put aside any ego I have to better the team.
Yes, I am able to spend a lot of time with the team.

Chapter 1: Explain the differences between leaders and managers.  Would product owners and scrum masters be leaders, managers, both, or neither?
Leaders are meant to help peers improve themselves and work towards a common goal.  Managers direct people to get work done.  A product owner and scrum masters have to be a combination of both a leader and a manager.  They need to help improve people while directing them to get work done.

I think qualities of a leader can be natural and some aspects are a skill.  Some people are more charismatic and are good at helping people from birth.  Knowing how to lead takes practice which makes it partially a skill.

Chapter 2: In what places in your life have you earned authority?  How did you get it?
I have earned leadership on some of my soccer teams.  I was a captain a few years ago on one of my teams.  I earned this by playing well and helping my teammates.  I have also lead the defense of some of my teams.  I was given the authority because I knew what to do and was confident enough to speak up when needed.

Chapter 2: What is a legitimate use of power by the leaders of a FRC team?  How often should this be used?
Leaders of out team should use power in order to keep people focused on the task at hand. This should only be used when people are getting unfocused during crunch time.  Also, if breaks become overused a leader should get people back to work.

End with a summary of what you learned.
I learned about how to use leadership and reasons it is given to people.  With these skills I, along with everyone leading, can help improve our team.  These strategies will allow for us to implement the strategies of scrum and lean startup.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

SL1 Bryan

  • Chapter 1: Explain the differences between leaders and managers.  Would product owners and scrum masters be leaders, managers, both, or neither?

Leaders are people that can make others work willingly. Managers are people who can manage the team and organize things. Scrum masters would be like leaders because they are leading the team and product owners would be managers.

  • Chapter 1: Hunter says that leadership is a skill, not something many are born with.  Do you actually believe this?  Have you always believed this?  What evidence have you seen in your life to back up your response?

I believe that it can be a skill or can be something you are born with. I think this way because I have seen leaders since I was a child and I have seen people become leaders through work and effort so that they can become the best leader that they can be.

  • Chapter 1: The word "influence" comes up dozens of times in the first chapter.  Why does Hunter keep talking about it?

Hunter keeps talking about influence because it is critical to have to become a leader. I you can't influence how can you do your job as a leader?  If you can't influence people how can you get people to work?

  • Chapter 2: In what places in your life have you earned authority?  How did you get it?

I have earned authority only a few times in my life, but I got it due to respect and trust. Now, I may not be the most respectable person or trustworthy, but when I need to be authoritative I will take charge.

  • Chapter 3: Hunter lists a number of history's greatest servant leaders: Jesus, Ghandi, MLK, and many more.  Name one person who has earned authority over you because of their service in your life.  Give a few concrete examples of what they do that earns them authority over you.

My mother has earned authority over me because she brought me into this world. That is really only the only real reason, but it is a pretty good reason.

Summary:

Leaders are people who need to be able to make others work. They need to be responsible and able to work, themselves. Leaders can be born and can be trained.


Jacob SL1

  • Chapter 1: Explain the differences between leaders and managers.  Would product owners and scrum masters be leaders, managers, both, or neither?
A leader is someone who can influence followers to work fully towards a mutual goal or gain while a manager is someone who is tasked with making things happen on time in a certain way.  A manager doesn't always have authority but they are given power over the people they are managing so they can get a task done.  Scrum masters and product owners would have to be both manager and leader since although a leader can get people to follow them, they need at least some managerial skills to handle things like deadlines and problem causers.
  • Chapter 1: Hunter says that leadership is a skill, not something many are born with.  Do you actually believe this?  Have you always believed this?  What evidence have you seen in your life to back up your response?
I am sure that leadership is a skill that can be learned and I have always been pretty sure of it.  There is probably a set of genes which, if someone grows up in the right environment, will allow people to be great leaders, but Leadership definitely isn't just genetic as evidenced by the thousands of inheritors who squandered their parents authority, power, or money.  I've also seen people become better leaders simply through practice in groups at school.
  • Chapter 1: The word "influence" comes up dozens of times in the first chapter.  Why does Hunter keep talking about it?
Hunter keeps talking about influence because it is central to being a leader.  People in charge can have different kinds of influence over others; there's the "I'll get fired if I do this wrong" influence, the "that guy helped me out last week so i'd love to reciprocate" influence, and many others.  The kind of influence you have with your workforce shows what kind of a leader you are.
  • Chapter 2: In what places in your life have you earned authority?  How did you get it?
I have earned a not so small amount of authority in school based concepts.  This is especially true for math since I have consistently done well in the subject and helped other people to do the same.  I also have a significant amount of authority with my brother since I have on more than one occasion covered for or helped him in situations which he didn't necessarily know how to deal with.
  • Chapter 2: What is a legitimate use of power by the leaders of a FRC team?  How often should this be used?
Using power to make others accomplish a task is actually somewhat difficult on FRC teams since there is little to threaten a dissenter with.  Obviously somebody could be kicked off of the team or removed from a project, but since the entire FRC experience is on a voluntary basis and we really need the people we have, both of those are unlikely.  Thus, we should only use power sparingly.  If someone is preventing a deadline from being reached or causing arguments, power could be used, but just as equally someone could simply tell them what is going on and try to work it out.
  • Summary
In these chapters I learned a little bit about the difference between managers and leaders, the difference between power and authority, and how your influence with your employees depicts your leadership or management style.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Braxton SL2

Chapter 4: Describe the difference between love, the feelings, and love, the choice.

The difference between the feeling of love and the behavior of love is a big one. While love the feeling is all bout 'romance, flowers, and candy', the act of love is for more than just your close friends and family. It is about caring for your employees, colleagues, and clients. It is helping them and serving their collective needs, even before your own. It is a useful skill for good bosses and managers to possess.

Chapter 4: Four communication styles are aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive, and assertive.  What is the ideal form that we should use?  What have we primarily used in the past?

On our team, the ideal form of communication that we would use is assertive. It is honest and to the point, without causing difficulty long the way. In the past, however, we have used ll of the other forms, in different ways and with different people. There have been petty plots and feuds that fall into passive-aggressive category, moments of passivity towards people not working or taking an indefinite break, and moments of aggression towards one another. No one single type was used the majority of the time. The rare moments of assertiveness were our most productive as well. 

Chapter 5: If you had to create a survey that collected final thoughts from graduating FRC seniors, what do we need to hear from them?  How could we make them feel comfortable about being open and honest without holding things back?

Some of the things that would be helpful to hear from graduating seniors would be insight such as what improvements they would make, best moments, worst moments, how they felt about how often we met, whether they felt they got value out of being in FRC, etc. Some ways we could ensure they are comfortable with open honesty would be anonymity, a disclaimer about how these answers would be used to improve the team, etc. I'm not a professional survey-maker, so I'm not sure what more we could do on this front.

Chapter 5: "Love without discipline is not love at all."  Provide some insight into that statement.

In this case, the quote means that if you truly love your employees (verb-wise), and want to serve them, you must discipline them when they do wrong and hold them accountable. Otherwise, you hurt the other employees and yourself in the process. Therefore, you must either discipline, keeping in mind that discipline in this case is a helpful, not hurtful, process, or remove them from your organization.

Chapter 7: Change is usually initiated by friction / discomfort / pain / suffering.  If you want to change your habits, where will the discomfort come from that motivates your change?

One discomfort that could motivate change is a time inconvenience. For example, a simple task that should only take a day ends up taking a week, and this ends up happening a lot over the next few months. My productivity has tanked, and I'm suffering losses due to that. This would motivate a change.

End with a summary of what you learned.
In this section of the reading, I learned about people's characters and personalities, just what is love, different types of communication, personality, and character, and much more. This can all apply to myself and how I lead.