Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 3

Day 3 Today's agenda: Nature versus nurture interactive exercise Unit flow Solo work on unit plan Talk about rubrics Described deliverables: Friday we'll present our unit plans to the group. Tomorrow we'll do some exercises but mostly work on the unit plans More solo work on unit plan Unit flow Do they know what's coming next? If not, maybe you lead them through steps with exercises, materials, data, etc. If so, are they figuring out what to do? You plan stages. Students need a rationale to do it, why should they care? Can work backward from what you want them…

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Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 2

I’ve written about inquiry-driven project-based learning and learning leadership and entrepreneurship. It’s a style of teaching that’s one of the main foundations of how I teach and coach leadership. It’s different than lecturing. Here’s why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach. This week I’m attending Science Leadership Academy’s intensive Summer Teaching Institute. Science Leadership Academy is a school founded on inquiry-driven project-based learning, so it’s one of the best places to learn it. To help reflect and share what I learn, I’m posting daily notes here. Day 2 Today’s first set of exercises seemed to revolve around expression,…

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Summer Institute Reflections

I've written about inquiry-driven project-based learning and learning leadership and entrepreneurship. It's a style of teaching that's one of the main foundations of how I teach and coach leadership. It's different than lecturing. Here's why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach. This week I'm attending Science Leadership Academy's intensive Summer Teaching Institute. Science Leadership Academy is a school founded on inquiry-driven project-based learning, so it's one of the best places to learn it. To help reflect and share what I learn, I'm posting daily notes here. Day 1 We practiced parts of two projects: a “court case” about…

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Are you motivating people for their benefit or yours?

Have you experienced someone trying to influence or lead you for their benefit, not caring about your interests? You didn't like it, did you? You probably resented them. You know what they ask you to do will help them but if you don't know it will help you, their leadership discourages you. Putting your interests before the team's discourages team mates and lead them to question your influence. They probably didn't know they were discouraging. So if they didn't know, how do you know if you are? Here's one way to find out. Think of what it means to motivate.…

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People want recognition

If you want to lead people, letting them act on their existing motivations will motivate them a lot more than not recognizing those motivations. If that motivation builds in caring about others' interests, all the more effective. A lot of people look down on others who do things for personal recognition, applause, glory, and things like that. "You should do it because it's good, that's all," they say. Often they don't say it, they just think it. People who think this way miss a major aspect of people's motivations. People like recognition for their work too. It makes a lot…

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Op-Ed Friday: Men and learning leadership

At a meeting to promote the teaching of leadership a couple months ago, I saw several proposals to support women pursuing leadership but none for men. I sensed that others there felt that since men held nearly all corporate and government positions of authority that men had greater access to positions of leadership. I didn't feel comfortable bringing it up, but I found a few perspectives missing. Advantages existing for men to attain leadership positions doesn't make the average man happier or make his life easier. Most men have no access the corporate or political power of any sort. Actually,…

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Why leadership and entrepreneurship exercises work

It sucks when you're playing a team sport and you get shut down trying to cut to get open, the other team scores on you, you throw into an interception or some mistake like that. Few of us enjoy admitting to faults, so we often make excuses that the problem was with your team mates, the sun, the equipment, or something out of your control. When you run drills or exercises in practice, it's another story. Effective ones are designed to focus on particular skills. A cutting drill, for example, focuses on cutting. You might have to run the same…

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July 4, 1939: “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”

Lou Gehrig was one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century. He died in his prime from the disease often named after him. On July 4, 1939, he gave his retirement speech, which I copied below. Some career highlights from Wikipedia: He was an All-Star seven consecutive times, a Triple Crown winner once, an American League (AL) Most Valuable Player twice, and a member of six World Series champion teams. He had a lifetime .340 batting average, .632 slugging average, and a .447 on base average. He hit 493 home runs and had 1,995 runs batted in (RBI). He…

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Learning about relationships ruins most movies and TV

My pasts three posts were about how media misrepresents leadership like juvenile fantasies of beating people who disagree with you. If you don't know how to lead, you might enjoy the drama of the misrepresentations, but you risk retarding your growth. It's deeper than just leadership. Movies and TV dramatize and misrepresent nearly all relationships. The more I learn about relationships... Well, for one thing the more my life improves. But the more I learn about relationships, the more those I see in movies and television seem twisted into what will hook people into watching more. TV shows and movies…

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This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 3

"Just do what I say." "Do it now." "John, do X. Sally, do Y. I'll do Z. Then we'll met and put everything together." Wouldn't leadership be easy if we could tell everyone what to do and they'd do it? It never seems to work like that, though, does it? Most people understand that problems come up. They don't always realize that command-and-control leadership often discourages people from working with would-be leaders who work with it. Why do people still order people around? I think one reason is how much popular media show leaders working with it. It's simple and…

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This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 2

Once in high school some of the popular kids picked on me. It humiliated me. That evening I talked to a friend on the phone who told me that many people in the school felt for me and looked down on them. On the phone, I felt I had their support and started developing an idea: I would confront the kids who picked on me in a public venue, like the cafeteria, where the mass of other students would see me taking charge. They would rally behind me and we would rise victorious somehow, winning the confrontation. I didn't know…

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This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 1

"You don't understand me!" "I wish I'd never been born!" Who hasn't yelled something like that at their parents? I'm sure I did. I argued with my parents like all kids. I've grown since then and don't argue like that any more. I still disagree, I just try more to seek understanding, not to confront so adversarially. I was just in a line and overheard two workers argue. They weren't yelling, but they weren't getting anywhere near resolving their conflict. They were adults but as best I could tell hadn't grown past a juvenile way of dramatizing conflict, trying to…

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Learn inquiry-driven project-based learning from experienced experts this July!

If you've talked to me about teaching in the past year, you know how much the students at Science Leadership Academy have inspired me to teach in the style of that school---that is, what they call inquiry-driven project-based learning. The first student I interacted with when she showed me around the school showed as much leadership skills as many people with MBAs I've met. I've participated and led talks at the school's EduCon annual January conferences. This summer, the week of July 20th, I'm attending their one-week Summer Teaching Institute in Philadelphia. If you're teach or lead, I predict this…

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If you can’t improve it, spending time on it wastes your time

There are a lot of things worth paying attention to and spending time on trying to affect. If you can't or won't do anything about something you don't like, it doesn't improve your life to worry about it or to take time away from something you like or can do something about. You can call it "choosing your battles" or "discretion is the better part of valor." If you're taking time from something you enjoy for something you don't that you can't or know you won't do anything about, you're choosing to make your life worse. It's not worth it.…

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“You’re too f-ing cheap to by my book?!”

My professor cursed: "You're too fucking cheap to buy my book?!" This was an Ivy League business school. I was stunned. Class just ended and I was asking him a question, as students do. Other students probably heard as they packed their bags and left the room. He had assigned his own book for the class. A couple weeks before, the bookstore clerk told me the book would come out soon in paperback and that I could save money if I waited. The cursing came in response to my telling him this, and that I was using the library copy…

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Recovering from mistakes helps more than striving for perfection

You can learn to recover from mistakes. I don't think you can do everything perfect. Maybe you can on solo projects but not when your project involves other people with conflicting values. While I do things the best I can, I don't kid myself to think I can do them perfectly from everyone's perspective. Having the goal sets you up to find failure where you don't have to. When you own up to shortcomings or unresolved conflict, people see you as more approachable, which helps if you want to lead or influence them. Fixing your mistakes and handling fallout from…

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How to make a phone call with someone you don’t know but want to help you

[This post is part of a series on Communication Skills Exercises for Business and Life. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] I just got off the phone with a client who was preparing for a call with someone important to help her. She was nervous because of his status and not sure how to make the call work. She typically would talk too much about herself, which didn't get the results she wanted of the other person wanting to…

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Student feedback on my leadership class

I asked the students from my leadership class for undergraduates at NYU last semester for the three top things they learned, the three things they valued most, and the three things they'd improve. The responses were all anonymous. I collected the information to know what to keep and what to improve for next year. Some parts might not make sense if you weren't in the class, but I thought I'd share them to show the results of how I teach leadership. I'd love to read your impressions. Not all the students responded. Each set of three responses is from a…

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Have you striven for excellence?

Have you put everything you had into something? Have you tried as hard as you possibly could? Have you run until you dropped? Skied as fast as you possibly could, risking injury? Decided to lift a weight you couldn't conceive of lifting and done it? Have you run sprints in the rain, alone? Have you put your name and reputation on the line for all time? Have you said no to things anyone would say yes to because the sacrifice was worth it? Have you doubted everything you thought was right because your experience taught you things school never could…

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An experiment in delegating authority: Having students grade themselves

Last semester I experimented with giving students the responsibility of grading themselves. I think it went well enough that I plan to do it again next time, though I plan to refine the process based on what I learned. Motivation The idea resulted from a talk by Barry Salzberg, the global CEO at Deloitte, to Columbia Business School's alumni club. He talked about a challenge that since became part of his legacy at the firm. The challenge was to create standards for all Deloitte's member firms. Member firms operated independently before joining the Deloitte firm, after which they had to…

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Leading versus coercion

  • Post category:Leadership

The leadership I practice, teach, and coach begins with the other person's interests. Students and clients hear me say "Put their interests first while you lead them" a lot (usually followed by "the rest of the time know and act on your interests, but put theirs first when you're leading them."). Working with their interests means working with what they care about which means working with their values. So I often ask the following to contrast with leading without knowing their interests and values: If you want to lead someone against their values, what are you doing? If you want…

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We interpret leaders gloriously leading the charge backward today

Today's world presents leaders leading a group of people like a king or glorious leader, like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. It inspires people to seek that glorious position where they feel people look up to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlL65LD6I4 We misunderstand that view, the more I think about it. When armies went into battle then, the first person charging took the biggest risk. He made himself most vulnerable to attack, risking his life. It made sense for people to see him as a hero. Once he charged into battle, others could follow him, now safer. He supported them. Today, leaders don't take…

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Why do actors and entertainers become leaders more than the other way around and what can we learn from the pattern?

The other day I saw an ad for a TV show where 50 Cent was the executive producer. I don't know what role he had---maybe they're just using a star's name to get viewers---but at least the title suggests he has some leadership role. It made me think. A lot of actors, entertainers, and other performers move into leadership roles, but I rarely see it go the other way. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Same with athletes, come to think of it. People on the right wing get mad at celebrities who take up a cause, but I mean…

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How to get a mentor in two easy steps that work

I trust you know the value of a mentor. I'll take for granted you also know how to create a connection with someone. If not, read my Meaningful Connection exercise and my social skills exercise series. So I'll start at a point where you have at least a rudimentary dialog with someone whose mentorship will help you. Step 1: Ask them for advice Ask them for advice on something that matters to both of you. After enough time passes for you to act on the advice, go to step 2. It helps if you act on the advice, but not…

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Closing remarks to my leadership class

Here is how I closed my last leadership class session a few days ago. It followed talking about Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. We happen to have lived through a semester where the headlines show we haven't realized his dream. You only had to read the headlines for more problems. I'm volunteering for a non-profit that works on incarceration. We have children on Riker's Island in solitary confinement. Children. In our lifetimes sea levels will displace tens or hundreds of millions of people from their homes. I taught you skills. I think practicing those skills leads to…

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