A521.7.4.RB- Knowledge Sharing Story

“Explanations can come to represent lenses through which we view the world” (Denning, 2011, p. 191) From 2010 until 2013, exactly three years to the day, I worked at an Optometry office. While there were leadership flaws that attempted to mar my experience, I came to adore the patients and the subject matter of eyes. One of the many interesting things about working in a medical office is you see the whole human spectrum: shy people, young people, mean people, elderly people etc. Some of the more interesting were the brave people who would say to me, do you wear glasses? To which I would reply, no. Then they would implore, well, do you wear contacts? Unceremoniously I would gently shake my head no. Then my favorite question would be, so why do you work here? At first this question made me feel like an imposter. I understood the underlying question, if you have never experienced wearing glasses, how could you possibly know anything about them?

I was looking for a job and I had an unusual amount of friends all working at the same place. They asked me if I wanted a job and naturally I was hesitant for the reason of not knowing anything about glasses. It was a trainable position, in fact it was preferred that you needed to be trained. They shared their knowledge with me. Suddenly this world of vision and eye health opened up to me filled with concepts I never imagined before. There was so much more than just wearing glasses. Post operative surgery care, cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, lasik surgery, eye problems, refractions, dilations and the list just continues. Of course, vision correction was the most obvious reason patients ended up patients. The term glasses, as a concept, was just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many types of frame materials, face shape matters, nose pads or none, single vision, bifocal, trifocal, progressive lens, lens coatings, anti-glare and of course care and repair. Part of my job was to do phone triage for the office. When patients called, I would obtain the information pertaining to their issues based on questions I would ask to determine how emergent the situation was and to give knowledge and instruction depending on what I heard. Not long after taking the position I found myself a walking eye encyclopedia.

Something I found myself passionate about was sharing the knowledge I had so that I could improve the lives of the patients. I realized the patients were the people in my community; a very large portion of the community, actually. Some were so blind they could truly wreck their car and kill someone. Some yearned to see the faces of their families. Not being able to see well is something that can make life very difficult and many depend on their glasses as a tool to allow them to do anything from basic functions to more complicated processes. Many people told me that if they could not see, they could not do their job.

It was astounding to me how little people knew about the things they wore on their faces everyday, all day and have been doing so for possibly decades. Although I did not specifically train in optical, I acquired the knowledge to share and took opportunities with each patient whether asked a specific question, during small talk or during checkout to improve their glasses experience. I had many adorable patients and I would like to tell them a quick rundown about things you may not realize about your glasses, how to care and how to repair. They were genuinely pleased with how much I cared about their vision and that I was giving them information to improve their lives.

In our office, it was our goal to provide the best quality products that could simulate as close to the human eye possible. Each year vast improvements are being made, however the intricacies of the eye are fully able to be captured. For instructional purposes, most of the glasses were made with Crizal, a built in coat that varies in levels that reduces glare, improves clean ability and comes with a warranty. (FYI, fun tip, never use superglue to repair your glasses, it voids the warranty. You are welcome, world.)

I knew when patients reached for the cleaning cloths or the cleaning spray, it was a great time to talk about how to clean glasses. I would say to them, I see that you are buying cleaning spray and a cleaning cloth, but do you know the best way to clean your glasses? I bet you would never guess what I am about to tell you. What you do is take dish soap, like Dawn, and warm water and wash your glasses like you are washing the dishes. In fact, you can even wear them right into the shower and use that soap, too. Just do not let the water be too hot because you can craze the lenses, which is many micro fractures in the lens that cannot be removed. The grease cutting agents in the dish soap cuts the natural oils the human face has that is constantly rubbing into your glasses. To dry them, a clean cotton cloth will do the trick. In the office, we use cut up old t-shirts. Make sure to dry the temples well so that your screw holding your lenses into your frame does not rust. The spray is great for when you are out and about and need to quickly take care of a smudge, but with your Crizal coating, a cleaning cloth will be able to take off fingerprints quite easily. Also, don’t forget that you can throw your cleaning cloth into the washer. It gets weighed down with oils, too. Just do not use fabric softener because it will not react with your lenses very well. The washing of both your lenses and cleaning cloths will make random daily cleaning much easier because you are not smearing the dirt and oils back and forth, they are actually removed.

Sharing this knowledge made wearing glasses a little easier for the patients. It is hard to have the best vision possible when you are looking out dirty windows. It also improved health. There are many skin ailments and hygiene is important for care and prevention. Denning states that knowledge sharing occurs countless times every day and during this time period of my life it truly did. The act of knowledge sharing continuously required teaching individuals on a one-on-one basis repetitively through the same explanations, but was worth it knowing they could make these industry standards of care part of their routines. Denning also says that through “the acquisition of this new experience, existing thoughts and beliefs can evolve. This is how we learn, and this is why the transmission of knowledge is largely made up of storytelling.” (Denning, 2011, p. 184) My hope was that patients would eventually pay it forward and possibly teach someone else in their lives. What you teach one person may teach many people. Spreading the knowledge around is much better than spreading the dirt and oils around on glasses lenses.

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

A521.6.3.RB- High-Performance Teams

There is something that is constantly sought and highly coveted in countless and varied organizational settings that it could be considered the universal organizational quest. Sports are a huge example of mixing talent and chemistry and seeing if it cooks up to meet the desired expectations. Some examples are Olympic teams, pit crews; a dream team of basketball players, even a dream team of attorneys once upon a time. Oh, and the Yankees are notorious for trying to pay huge sums of money to try to create this. So what is the crown jewel of all organizational masterpieces? Well, it is the high-performance team, of course. What is better than one giant superstar? The answer is a team of talented, collaborating individuals that together all become superstars. A high-performance team could be described as a group of people growing and working together in a way that cannot be calculated but is effective in such an overwhelming way. Just ask the Beatles, or at least Ringo and Paul.

So the question is what elements are involved with putting together a high-performance team and how do you make one? Most importantly, you cannot force it. There needs to be supportive elements in place like a vision of a clear goal, supportive leadership, an appropriate blend of the members and resources. Beyond those conditions there is no way to design a blueprint to follow. Calculating how to create a high-performance team falls flat. Blueprints and calculations are not alive. Those who have been a part of a high-performance team see it as an experience that is meaningful that will be carried with them even after the years pass and the landscape of their personal and professional lives have changed, well after the team is no longer together. In a way it is like the three musketeers, all for one and one for all, everyone is in it together. The team members grow individually but together the tasks they carry out are more powerful and effective. If one fails, they all do. Passion is another building block that makes all the elements fuse together. The team grows strong together as they learn each other’s strengths and are able to quickly change the course of a situation with short notice. High-performance teams are truly a force to be reckoned with.

Accompanying all of the above, values cannot be overlooked. It is important when a team works together that they share values. If this is misaligned the balance can be thrown off. If there is a difference in the deeply held beliefs this can cause a rift. Having shared values allows for working together toward the common goal. If time permits, the underlying values can be examined, discovered and generated. Aligned values give way to an ease in collaborative efforts.

It took a considerable amount of time for me to find an organization that chose me to be part of their team and fits within the description of a high-performance team. This has been quite recent for me and already our progress together makes it seem like it would be much longer than eight months together. Some members have been a part of the group for longer, but have made comments there has not always been this level of cohesion. The more we talk about ourselves personally, the more I realize how similar we are on a basic level. We do share the same values. There have been times where I felt I was strange or even so unique that no one out there is like me, but together it is like I found “my people” because of our similarities. Instead of asking questions and then settling for not knowing, we go a step further and seek the answer. It matters to each of us how well we perform our job and how we make others feel. For me this has been tremendously positive because I felt like this may not be possible to obtain in reality and I felt lost thinking I was looking for a unicorn, something that did not exist.

While I would say recently I am part of my first high-performance team, there are other types of working together that exist which can be presented as four patterns. This may be accomplished through a team, a work group, a community or a network. I have been part of each of the patterns and respectively they are my academic advising team, a webpage design committee with my current organization, the local Little Theatre community and the Southeast Chamber of Commerce. While each of those was part of important moments in my life I feel there are both positive and negative aspects that can be pointed out. For example, while I met a lot of wonderful people when I spent time with the Chamber, I felt there were ulterior motives with those involved. The promotion of businesses and supporting the local community are wonderful and important for our small town’s survival. However, it seemed as if you were not in the market for that service the relationship became closed off quickly. Something that I feel that is amazing about being a part of the Little Theatre is the community aspect. Those involved are there for no other reason other than they genuinely want to be a part of it. Some are taking their firsts steps into getting involved and others are lifelong enthusiasts. Once you work with someone it opens up so many opportunities at other theatres you may not have necessarily ventured out toward. But if someone thinks of you and you are a fit for a role that is available, pulling someone in that another person knows is always supported. Once you are part of the community you always are regardless of how often you are involved in productions. Interestingly enough I have never acted outside of high school, I always dance or choreograph, but that does not make me any less of a part of the community.

Though I may never be part of something as big as being a Beatle or part of the Magnificent Seven 1996 US Olympic Gymnastics team, there is always potential of reaching new heights if you are fortunate enough to find your way into a place that makes you feel like you belong and can blossom as a high-performance team.If you are part of a high-performance team anything is possible.

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

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.