A521.5.4.RB- Aligning Values

I should count myself lucky, as most that are part of the workforce may not always have great things to say about their organization. They might not have any nice things to say at all. But I do. I could still be considered the new kid on the block but I know quality when I see it, feel it and am part of it. It is a true pleasure to be part of a genuinely ethical community and there are so many organizations that could really learn a great deal about ethical values if they took a moment to reassess their priorities. According to Denning (2011) ethical communities have three basic components: trust, loyalty and solidarity. These values seem to be intertwined and are prerequisite to each other to exist as a collective. 

Denning (2011) details trust, loyalty and solidarity as follows from his text The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative:          

    

    Trust: the general expectation among members that their fellows will behave ethically toward them.

    Loyalty: acceptance of the obligation to refrain from breaching one another's trust and to fulfill the duties entailed by accepting that trust.

    Solidarity: caring for other people’s interests and being ready to take action on behalf of others,even if it conflicts with personal interests.

My organization is quite large and can be thought of as parts of a machine, broken up into departments based on what function is in action. My department is even divided into sections based on purpose. The team I am a part of includes me and six other people who are guided by our director. To be quiet frank, I feel that there is not a lack of values presently at my organization. I trust my team, director and organization implicitly and feel loyalty to uphold the trust that has been given to me and that I return to others.                  

I feel like solidarity is part of my working life every single day and it reminds us that we are all working toward a common goal. We are all academic advisors for the online graduate program. We all do the same job and know the same things. To make sense of what could be chaos, we are broken up into alphabet sections. Whenever someone is out of the office we do coverage. This allows someone to be sick or take a vacation without worrying about coming back to a pile of work that could not easily be caught up with once it starts to snowball and build up. There are times each term that feel like in any given day you may never be caught up again, which is what makes coverage truly special. There is a schedule that has the coverage section divided between the remaining advisors. By each doing a little we make a big difference. 

Trust, loyalty and solidarity are so important in coverage situations because of what coverage entails. Sure, my own personal interests would prefer not to do coverage. Currently one of the advisors is out on maternity leave, which means every day in addition to my four hundred and seventy students I also work with one hundred and forty extra students. I know that it matters for our team goals, for the organization and for the students. I also know that when I am out of the office it makes me breathe a lot easier not to have my work looming over me. We are required to track of everything on a spreadsheet. When you are out, all of the advisors have access to your spreadsheet to make sure what has been done is accounted for and is being tracked. Without trust, this would be a nightmare because someone could easily delete essential information spitefully if the inclination presented itself. I absolutely do not have this fear because I know with these values in place through my organization and my team there would be no reason for it, we would all suffer in the end.

If the members of our team were to change or these values started to slip, reestablishing them would be vital for the continued success. Trust could turn to distrust and suspicion, loyalty to disloyalty and betrayal and solidarity could dissolve into discord and antagonism. It takes an awful lot of energy to watch one’s back that could be spent working together, dividing and conquering the work and getting great team results. Without aligned values you can learn to get by for a while, but that does not lead to flourishing or thriving. When values are not aligned the question is how long can you make it work? For long term success persevering ethical organizational values must be developed, aligned and maintained.

Reference: Denning, S., (2011). The leader’s guide to storytelling; Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass.

A521.4.3.RB- Subtleties of Communication and Hidden Messages

When you communicate with someone what do you think it is you are doing? Are you sharing a verbal recounting of an experience, venting, listening, or being a good friend? Maybe you think you are just chattering about with no real meaning beyond passing the time. Is that what your words say? Is that what your body says? Are you sure?

I used to have great posture from dance. I would receive compliments on how I stood up straight. Becoming an adult I saw many regular dance opportunities disappear and have struggled to find another exercise I like. I just cannot connect and so I just do not do it regularly. This has made my body change and how I feel about myself. Social kinesics is the way you communicate through the use of your body. Within each culture lies a non-verbal understanding of a set of gestures or postures. Now that I am not as self assured about my instrument of communication, my body, I have found myself not standing up straight. I cross my arms and hold them into myself in an attempt to appear smaller, more compact. When I speak to someone else, what I am likely communicating to them is that I don’t care about what they have to say, when truly, I feel like I need to control my body in a way that I approve of so I can be socially accepted enough to be spoken to through the eyes of another. I am becoming more conscious of this growing bad habit to stop it before I become so off putting the only true reason no one would want to speak to me is that I seem rude and disinterested.

A suggestion to improve this is to uncross your arms, let them easily rest beside you. It is possible you may want to speak to someone with your palms facing out so that you can even subtly communicate your level of trustworthiness. There are so many defensive positions we can take that make us closed off and the key is to learn to open up so that we send the right message. Another prominent way that I communicate with others is my facial expressions. I do not have a poke face. You can tell everything I am thinking or feeling because my face will betray me every time. I like to think it is a modifier that keeps me honest because why risk saying one thing and tell on yourself in the process?

In my experience when I am communicating with someone who is incongruent with their body language, paralanguage and metamessages I quickly enter attack and destroy mode. There is nothing like perceiving being back talked that boils my blood. You will see this on my face, the way I title my head, twist my mouth, give attitude through my shoulders, cock one leg, push out one hip, lift an arm to my hip and strum my fingers. I might as well have a cat tail to thump around with my distaste.

It is rather unfortunate that the very person I have lived with for nine years should be inducted in the bad body language hall of fame. I am constantly blaming him for giving me a look, being hasty, being rude, back talking me and other numerous paralanguage and metamessaging issues. It is hysterical when Joey from friends tells Ross that he is sorry with air quotations because he does not understand the true meaning behind his actions. Comedy often uses these incongruences to deliver their humor. In person, it just does not translate to being so cute when you have it unfold right in front of you. I have explored acting, being inducted into my thespian troupe in high school, so I feel I have mastered understanding the tools of “act and react” and what seems like normal, congruent messages. I feel like I have an aptitude in understanding the subtleties of non-verbal communication. The rhythm and pitch in which he will tell me: “Okay, I am sorry. I care, so I will never do that again” seems full of smarminess. If you break apart that statement it can be read many ways. It can cause a lot of arguments. He often thinks he is picked on at work and I often ask are you sure you didn’t accidentally earn it? Considering feedback, even in the most volatile forms, may be the best place to start to examine if there is anything going on that you are telling other people. What do you say to others when your eyes aren’t watching your body and your ears are not listening to your verbal modifiers, volume and pitch? It could be more than you think.

Reference: McKay, M. P., Davis, M. P., & Patrick, F. (2009). Messages: The communication skills book. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

A521.3.4.RB- Personal Reflections

In 1993 when I was little girl growing up in Florida I remember sitting on the couch in trouble. My dad sat next to me while I traced patterns in the couch fabric avoiding his gaze, he was concerned that I had not listened to him and that I would not admit it. This was an unusual occurrence because I was good at listening and did not like being in trouble. I cannot recall what I did twenty-one years ago to land myself in hot water but I will always remember the speech he gave to me. He looked at me and told me, “You are so stubborn… just like your mother… and your grandmother.” This got my attention because that was almost like fighting words in my mind. My mother had passed away the year before and my father loved her deeply. She had a way of never doing anything she was suppose to, especially when someone told her it was good for before she made up her own mind about it. In the end I think that was how her cancer had progressed so much before it was found, she would not go to the doctor and find out what was wrong because my father suggested it. I suppose this should not be of any surprise because she did not cook beyond heating stuff up for me to eat because she did not like how the Home Economics teacher told her how cook. She wanted to do it her way or no way. My grandmother, on the other hand, was the type of family member that cast a dark shadow wherever she went. Being compared to her obviously could not be a compliment. He continued on by saying that I am so stubborn and hardheaded like them and that he did not want to watch me defeat myself in everything that I do. My dad caught me doing what I was told not to and I continued to deny it and would not give in. This got me into more trouble, but I was not going to concede. Give in? Never!  He told me that his hope for me was that one day I would learn to be stubborn toward my own benefit. I remember going to my room trying to figure out what could that possibly even mean. I did not even think I was stubborn.

It took years for me to realize what he meant by me being stubborn. Once my mind was made up there was no chance of my opinion being swayed. This actually did turn out to be moderately beneficial. I remember in 2000 I had turned sixteen and got my first car. My best friend who was younger than me would ask me every day without fail right before lunch period if we could skip school and go to the beach. She would try every tactic possible by reminding me what a gorgeous day it was or how awful my sixth period test was going to be. Unfortunately for her, I knew that my car would get taken away and would not be given back. Each time she asked me I gave her a firmly unwavering no. I didn’t feel bad, no guilt plagued me. The answer was no and that was the end of that; I could go back to my school day business as usual and no amount of pouting and whining interfered. She would get so irritated that all she would ever hear was no that she would tell me that I was so stubborn, to which I would just shrug my shoulders and agree.

Being stubborn started showing up in the little everyday details. I would try to open a pickle jar and if someone wanted to take it away from me to try, I would only try to open it even harder. I was not going to quit trying. Now that my struggle was evident, I had to prove I could open the pickle jar. I spent years in gymnastics so I incorporated this into things that people do not normally do. For instance, I enjoyed backward flip rolling off the bed as my dismount. All I would ever hear about this little artistic flair of mine was that I was going to crack my head open. Naturally my response to this would be to expertly execute my flip roll and smirk about it, beaming an ‘I told you so’ grin. Even being told that I need to write down the section in the parking garage is a battle of my will. That little voice reminds me that you think I cannot; so I decide that I can and then I do. It became obvious that being told the phrases ‘you can’t’ and ‘no’ are really an invitation to a great challenge. Instead, I hear: Yes let’s do this, this is exactly what I should be doing, I’ll show you and/or why not? I am afraid to do virtually everything until I hear that something cannot be done. Suddenly my brain hears: challenge accepted! I just try my best or try harder until I am right.

Reflecting on my adult life, I think that this has become advantageous the way that my dad had hoped. When others are ready to throw in the towel and give up, I perk up and keep plugging along. In an organizational or team setting I think that I bring perseverance to the table with my stubborn streak. Sometimes it takes someone not willing to give up which helps others keep forging on and to try, try again. This sets the tone that things can be accomplished and figured out. I am usually stubborn enough to make sure I find a way, even if it is not always the traditional way; I am willing to make it work. My lack of giving up is really a gift from what could be a negative trait. I suppose I have some good parenting advice to thank.

A521.2.3.RB- Danger of Stories

The single story is out there right now being passed from person to person, written in the paper and internet, broadcast by newscasters and already in our minds. It has taken residency in our lives and likely innocently crept in through images, stories and pieces of information we gather from going about our day as we are constantly receiving messages told and created by others, maybe even by ourselves. These days so much is out there to hear about and to know, layered on us, it is almost impossible to weed out the good from the bad initially. Once the single story is released it bounces like a virus and becomes our impression, what we know, or we think we know. Much like a conniving attorney, one slip of a slanted fact, regardless if the judge overrules it, that idea has made a mark on the jurors’ minds and is now something to be considered. It sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? It can be. So what is a single story? During an eye-opening TED talk, Chimamanda Adiche, a Nigerian storyteller presents “The Danger of a Single Story” and shares the concept of what the single story is and how dangerous it can be.

I really do not know that much about Nigeria. I wouldn’t pretend to and when I try to bring a reference to mind I kind of float around that Nigeria is in Africa. I picture Africa being a place of both mixed delicacy and unsavory humanitarian issues. Africa, in general, is home to the Dior campaign model and actress, Charlize Theron, romanticized safari expeditions, poaching, AIDS epidemics, political unrest, clean water initiatives and the sad, starving children in the commercials that for one dollar a day can save and feed a family. For me, I suppose I do not necessarily sort out the difference between the two. My single story of Nigeria would be that of Africa; I do not distinguish what has modernized and what has not. In my version of the single story all the worlds’ people have all of the options that I have each day. I am not sure my mental picture is the same as someone who has been there, nor necessarily the same of someone who has not. During her presentation, Adiche tells of her impressions she had of the world while growing up and how she came to learn about the impressions of others when she left Nigeria and came to America for college. Her roommate asked to listen to her traditional, tribal music, but she listens to Mariah Carey. Regardless where you are from and what you do, it is likely at some point you will only see something as one thing and that is what it will be to you; one dimensional, flat and partial. According to Adiche, “the single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” (Adiche, 2009)

I started to wonder how this happens, how the single story becomes our reference point. I think back to the commercial that has played for what feels like at least two decades of my life. I do not think it is untrue, but it is such a powerful message and possibly one of the only connections we may have to knowledge of the people in Africa that we adopt that as an overall fact. I looked on the Save the Children website, Nigeria is not on the master list. This is not to say they do not have some of the same issues, I just feel like I needed to preface that fact so that I did not accidentally spread misinformation through my own single story ignorance. At TED, Adiche states, “So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” The danger is a lot of these stories are negative in nature. There is a concept of a storytelling tool called the springboard story, explored by Stephen Denning, which uses simple messages to relay an idea to others. It almost seems like the commercial is a well-intention charity fundraising outreach gone wrong, a truly unintended consequence. It tells of the tragedy that occurs and plays to our sympathies to gather relief for that part of the world, while leaving the single story impression which may be the only thing that some may ever know about that part of the world. Adiche also comments that we are impressionable and vulnerable in the face of a story.

As I roll around more possibilities it also seems like this commercial reference is a mixture of denotative and connotative symbols that play into the theatre of the mind, something Whalen says can merely be offered to you, held out for your consideration. (Whalen, 2007) Of course, my offering of Africa and the Save the Children commercial are one of many possible examples of a single story. I have had my own run in with the single story. I went to Mississippi for college and all I heard about the south was that everyone there was barefooted, uneducated cousin-kissers. I just cringed in my seat as I typed that. What a terrific impression to have. I did not really think that this single story is what I would encounter, but I was mighty surprised when I had to stop for gas. I found many of the women in big fancy SUVs, in full hair and makeup on the weekend just to make their coffee run. I absolutely watched intently on the action all around me. Who would have thought that is what I would see on my first day?  Certainly not me, but I did. When others checked in with me and asked about the barefoot and toothless inhabitants of the south, I was quick to point out that I have seen as many teeth as anywhere else I have been and the bare feet are actually running around all over the beach in Florida, the state in which I am from. Adiche’s overall message is that it is important to have a balance of stories, not just a single story. I accept this as something I need to work on each day as I encounter the world around me. I think there is a profound power to becoming cognizant of what happens with dogged frequency that by naming the phenomena, the single story, we can all work against the dangerous, stereotyping power in which it yields.

References:

                Adiche, C. (2009, October).  Chimamanda Adichie: The danger of a single story. Ted Podcast retrieved from: 

                http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html

Denning, S., (2011). The leader’s guide to storytelling; Mastering the art and discipline of business narrative. San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass.

Whalen, D. J., & Ricca, T. M. (2007). The professional communications toolkit. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.