The follow is an example of a weekly exchange that I have with learners in
my MBA Leadership Skills Course. I use Cameron and Whetton as the text. The
homepage containing assignment, etc. is found here:
http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/org-a652/.
To get to this message, we've done the following each week in the course:
* students are assigned a set of materials, typically a chapter in C&W and
some additional articles.
* they are required to submit their written responses prior to coming to
class. Most of this is done by email to me.
* as I receive their responses, I resond to each of them individually.
* I compose a whole group response, such as the one you can read below,
containing my introductory comments, a selection of their responses to the
assignment with my comments following theirs.
* in class, I move quickly through some main themes that I've picked up by
reading their submissions.
* they break into learning groups ... they've been challenged and helped
to become self-assessing ... to test the fantasy of the learning
organization ideal and to find the bugs and the payoffs.
If any of you would care to dialogue about the methods I'm using, I'd
welcome it.
Ray
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To: OA 652 Class
Fr: Ray Rasmussen
Hi Folks,
This message will be replicated on the OA652 webpage under the COMMENTS button.
I've enjoyed reading your comments and I think that you will find what
others have to say about the materials is interesting. Toward the end, you
will find comments about team mates that you may find of particular
interest. Feedback to me is contained somewhere in the middle -- what do
you think that people will reveal about my leadership style ... will it be
all diplomacy?
As I read these submissions [interesting word for a learner's ideas, eh?] I
am struck by how little of my co-learner's ideas were shared when I was a
student. Your comments strike me as the rich blood of education, but too
often they've been stripped away by a system that encourages individual
work, memorization, working against co-learners, doing what it takes to get
the mark, and so on ...
The obvious richness and diversity of learners' ideas and experiences has
led Adult Educational Theorists to call for an emphasis on group learning,
just as organizational theorists have emphasized team learning and
organizational learning. Here's the way one of them, James E. Russell, dean
emeritus, Teachers College, Columbia University, put it:
"It can not be pointed out too often that all education is self-education.
Teachers may help
define procedure, collect equipment, indicate the most propitious routes,
but the climber must use his own head and legs if he would reach the
mountaintop. . . . The best method of teaching adults yet hit upon is
undoubtedly group discussion (Knowles, 1990, p. 34-35)."
Of course, Russell and Knowles are the counterpart to organizational
idealists to Senge and Gavin.
As you look over your comments and my comments below, I'd like to encourage
you tell me how they strike you. Of course, if you're a normal human,
you'll look to see whether something you said was targeted by me for the
whole group. But, beyond that, I'm curious about what reading these kinds
of comments, which are present but typically lost in every course you've
ever been in, does to you.
Of course you need not respond. I know time is a killer for all of us.
Maybe we'd better get to the stress management section next week, eh?
Ray
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Assignment 3 Comments:
Quote of the Week
Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the
foolish their lack of understanding. --Ambrose Bierce
On the Communication Styles Assessment and Model
STUDENT: I can't beleive it. I am a totally deflective communicator. My
second most common communicative style is (you guessed it) advising.
Man...this course Ray---It's kind of like getting kicked in the ass with a
frozen boot--only we registered for it--and dare I say many of us seem to
be enjoying it. But seriously---I did kind of know this. I am glad I am
taking the communication course next term--becasue I do want to change my
style of communication.
Ray: Be careful ... some advice, if done well, can be very useful. The
problem is that much advice is done without understanding the underlying
problem and is said in a way that conveys, in effect, "You idiot ... the
answer to your problem is simple [to a genius, well adjusted guy like me]".
So the other person feels like s/he's been treated like a child. For
further insight try the