Learning Stories

            For this story I am going to use Denning’s example (Leaders Guide To Storytelling pg. 186-187) of how a positive story from the past in someone’s memory can become a learning experience which can one day save their lives or the lives of others.

 

 

            As a child I grew up in New York City, there were many years when we had very extreme winters. Driving in the city during the winters was never easy, people had to be extremely careful and have prior knowledge on how to react in case of an emergency. When I was a kid at one point my dad was a cab driver; being that he was a cab driver he had extensive knowledge of driving around in the city and he knew the safest way to handle every emergency.

            I remember that as a kid he would always tell me safety tips about driving and what to do in different situations. He once told me about an incident where the temperature had fallen below freezing, there was a lot of moisture on the ground because some of the snow that was already out had melted while the sun was out. At the time he did not realize it but all of this moisture on the ground had frozen over and became black ice. While driving around that night in his big white 1980’s era Lincoln town car he would run into a surprise that he would be ready for.

            He told me that he was driving on the highway around two in the morning, there was almost no one out on the road which was surprising for NYC. As he was making a turn on the highway he felt his car start to drift, he immediately knew not to panic and he said that he calmly and continuously tapped the brakes on his car. He eventually came to a stop in the middle of the highway after sliding in circles for a couple of hundred feet. He felt lucky but he knew that if he had panicked and slammed on his breaks he would have slid right into a brick wall which lined the side of the highway. This stuck with me as a child because it was one of the few stories which my father’s life had been in danger.

            As a kid it was uncommon to learn how to drive in the city so I never got the chance to have my dad teach me how to drive, I am sure that he would have been a great instructor. I joined the military at the age of eighteen and by nineteen I was able to afford my own car. I taught myself how to drive which was kind of scary but with the help of a few friends I ended up being just fine.

            When I was twenty years old my duty station was switched from Bremerton, Washington state to Pensacola Florida. I was excited to leave the north and I had to find a way to get my car to Florida so I decided that I would make a cross country trip and experience something new. I decided I would stop by home in New York first though, it would be a good halfway point where I can relax for a couple of days.

            I decided to drive across the northern portion of the United States during December in a Ford Focus. This probably was not the best idea, but the views I had seen where breath taking and worth all of the trouble. It seemed that I was doing just fine until I got to Montana; it was a great drive and it seemed like there was a lot less snow. It was sunny and I thought that all was good, little did I know that the temperature outside was well below freezing and I would run into some black ice myself. As I was making a big turn on this highway I started to realize that my car was turning by itself. I was sliding out of control at about sixty-five miles per hour and it was a scary feeling. I almost began to panic but then for some reason I thought back to my dad’s experience while sliding on ice. I calmly tapped my breaks and eventually I slowly came to a stop, on this day there were also no other cars on the road. I quickly turned my car around and continued on the highway, my life had been saved.

            I felt so lucky and I immediately called my dad and told him what happened, he was happy that I was still alive and doing well. His story had such a huge impact on me and it became such a good learning experience that I was able to react the correct way when faced with an emergency situation. Stories like this can have a big impact on people, stories like this are a great way to learn valuable lessons which might come in handy one day when you least expect it.

 

Reference:

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

 

   

High Performance Teams

            Hi performance teams are interesting, in my opinion it seems like they have been around longer than we have known to even call them a high performance team. These teams are very similar to the teams that people form in a community, people are in high performance teams because they want to be not because they are forced to be in them. Like a team which is formed in a community people on high performance teams have a passion for what they do, they also take on the moto of “all for one and one for all”. I see high performance teams as a group of people that want to come together for the greater cause.

            There are many elements to a high performance team, one element is that they all have a “shared passion”(denning), this reminds me of the many little league baseball teams that I have been on in the past. I remember how strong a bond we all had as kids wanting to attain the same goal of being champions, we all knew what we wanted and on separate instances we would all rise to the occasion.

            When I was Thirteen years old I was part of a championship team that went undefeated that year, no one could match our teams skill. A big reason for this was that we would rapidly adjust to the shifting needs of the team, I see this as an important element for a high performance team. It is important because we would never let the next man down, when one of us failed the other person was there to pick them up. Another important element to our team which resembled a high performance team was the fact that we got better as the season went on, we saw our few mistakes and worked hard to get better at our sport each day.

            My time on that team was very meaningful, it was an incredible year and to this day; sixteen years later I will never forget the good times and the friends that I made that year. It seemed like we were all so passionate about the same thing and winning was the top agenda for all of us. We shared the same values, this was what started our amazing bond, without these values which we shared we would not have had the strength to come together and do something so special.

            Being on such a powerful team at such a young age showed me what it truly meant to be on a successful team, it was going to be hard for any other team to ever compare to what I had just experienced. Later on in life I had been part of what our text calls a work group, this is a group that even though they might be labeled a team; they are far from it. A work group has people that report to the same person and do work together but they do not depend on each other. It is more of an everyman for themselves type of work environment. I see work groups as people that are part of a team but are only interested in their own advancement, needless to say that I never really liked work groups.

            It was not until many years later when I joined the NAVY that I felt like I was in a real team again, the only difference was that the NAVY was more like a community. I was never asked to join this team I just became part of it by volunteering, I knew I wanted to do something different and this community accepted me in. Every person in this community had a different job; on our boat which we called home it took everyone’s skill to survive each day. We had people who would navigate our boat, people that would cook for us, people that supplied us and people that would defend us in case the need for that came. We all shared responsibilities and we would take turns standing watch; I had once again found what it was like to truly be on a team by joining this community. I will never forget my experience in the NAVY, it changed my life and molded me into who I am today.   

 

Reference:

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

Ethics

            Ethics in this world is something that is very important, rather it have to be ethics involving a family, a team or even a business; ethics are an essential key to success for these groups. Anytime there is a group which is brought together to complete a task there needs to be a certain code in order for there to be success. This code which is needed would be viewed as ethics, there are three basic components to ethics which firms must use if they are to survive in todays’ very competitive market.

            Trust, this is the general expectation among members that their fellows will behave ethically (Denning). Without trust people would not be able to form partnerships or team members would not be able to get the job done if they cannot depend on the person which they are working with. Trust in my company might just be the most important component of ethics, working for the railroad is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. When working for the railroad if you cannot trust the person you are working with your life will be at risk. Every year people die on the railroad because someone in their team made the wrong decision or they were careless.

            Loyalty, the acceptance of the obligation to refrain from breaching one another’s trust and to fulfill the duties entailed by accepting that trust (Denning). Loyalty to my company is important but then again I think this can be improved, I have seen a growing trend of nepotism at work. I feel that even though people are favoring their family members for promotions I see this as a lack of loyalty to those that have put in the hard work for you. I recently noticed that there is a twenty-eight year old recently promoted high position supervisor with only three years of railroad experience and a father which is in a very high position. This position usually goes to someone with about fifteen to twenty years of experience, I see this as a slap in the face to those that have poured their blood, sweat and tears into a company. I think that this good old boy system is very damaging to a company and I have seen many good talent walk out the door because of this system.

            Solidarity, caring for other people’s interest and being ready to take action on behalf of others, even if it conflicts with personal interests. This is very important because a company has to care for its employees, I have always felt that when employee morale is high then a company has a better chance to succeed. I think that this should be taken into account at BNSF railroad also. This year was a record breaking year for BNSF, we had more business than we knew what to do with it. Because business was so abundant train velocity slowed down due to all of the rail traffic, slower train velocity affected operations year-end bonuses tremendously. This last year BNSF handed out the biggest bonuses ever to top company officials, and also the smallest bonuses to the people who did all of the hard work. I understand that a lot of the money stays at the top but I do feel that the operations officer should have changed this bonus system on behalf of all of the hard work which operations department put in.

            I see that BNSF was built on good values and it is a very successful company but I do think that BNSF needs to take a deeper look into the ethics which Denning showcases in this chapter.

 

References:

Denning, S. (2011). The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

 

     

Body launguage

“Hey Alberto you are working so hard today, how about you take a break from all of this tedious work?” Those are the words which came out of friend last week, I then responded by saying “well I have to continue to make more money so that I can continue to grow my investments”. I was being honest with him, but I could sense a bit of discuss in his voice; I noticed that he did not want me to keep working so hard. What I should have said was “Thanks for your concern, it seems like it is getting harder to find a friend that is willing to support me in my goals”. If I would have said that to my friend maybe I would have been able to see if he was a “meta-messenger”. “A meta-message is a way to say something covertly that usually people are afraid to say directly” (messages). Usually meta-messengers can use this technique as a way to attack you covertly and discourage you from accomplishing your goals.

            There are many things that people say and do in an inconspicuous manner, people sometimes wear their heart on their sleeves for the whole world to see. If we are to see what people are truly thinking sometimes we have to dig deeper than what they are saying through their words. We can see what people are truly trying to say through different methods like body language, studies have shown that over fifty percent of messages is shown through body language. Body language is what people do when they are trying to pass a message along with their hand gestures, facial expressions, legs, feet, posture and breathing. Body language and body movements can be passed on from parent to child through social kinesics, this is how we as humans learn many of our body language gestures.

            Another important factor in body language is the way we use space with our bodies, this is called “proxemics”. “Proxemics is how far you stand next to a person when you talking to them, how you arrange the furniture in your home, or how well you respond to others invading your territory” (messages). Many people are not comfortable with someone getting to close to them, I like to tell people they are invading my bubble if they get within my comfort zone. I will usually laugh when I tell them this to keep the mood light but I am also being very honest. I might joke with Wife when I say this to her but only because she knows that for the most part there is no bubble when it comes to her. Many people will let you know through body language when you have invaded their space by also creating space and taking a step back. I remember seeing this happen on the subway a lot when growing up in New York City, I figure I might be used to people being close to me since I am from the city rather than someone that grew up in the suburbs.   

            Aside from body language there is different ways that we can also express ourselves and in some ways it is through words; although the words are important, the tone is the key to this type of communication. Paralanguage is a way of expressing yourself through different tones in your words, some people are good at using different tones to convey a message but others might come across as being monotone and people might find them boring. There are ways of correcting your paralanguage, recommendations for this include recording yourself and then listen to hear what you dislike about your voice. I always remembered that as a child when I would talk in front of my class that I had a very monotone voice, this always bothered me because when I talked to my classmates I could recall being a good story teller and at times entertaining. I made it a point to study myself in a speech class in high school by recording myself, in this class I was able to pick up on my failures as a public speaker. By improving my public speaking skills I was able to improve my confidence and increase my chances of becoming a better student and teacher to those around me.

            Picking up on how people act through more than their words is essential in today’s world, learning to pick up on what people are saying about themselves through “hidden agendas” is another way of learning how someone is truly feeling about themselves. Hidden agendas are seen every day, you see and hear it from the person who just wants to talk about how good they are to the politicians on the television that are trying to push their agenda. Many times at work I will hear people talk about themselves and how great they are, I never really gave it to much thought until now but I can see how a lot of people like to talk about themselves including me.

 I think that for the most parts humans want to have self-worth and many times this is achieved through the validation of others. Maybe everyone should read and understand the book messages, it is important that while we become educated that we reflect on ourselves and realize our own weaknesses and strengths.      

 

Reference:

Mckay, M. (2009). Body launguage. In Messages, The Communication Skils Book (Vol. 1, pp. 59-89). Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.