Get on the Balcony.

Hey, now. That's a nice view, huh?

In anticipation of my upcoming trip to LeaderShape Program Coordinator Training in Chicago, I'm sitting here thinking about how lucky I am to get to do all this leadership-y stuff with all of you. I really like our class. I hope you do, too. :)

Anyway, I promised you all a superb activity in place of our class period this week. Hopefully this will help prime you for further discussion on Emotionally Intelligent Leadership next week and serve as a helpful tool for your final projects.

Here We Go!

In addition to being the authors of the book we are reading, our friends Marcy Levy Shankman and Scott Allen are well-known scholars, facilitators, presenters... and are honestly pretty cool people in general. I think you'd like them. Scott actually commented on the Facebook picture I uploaded of Anooj and Tim during class last week.

You guys are so famous.

Marcy and Scott also blog from time to time. Which brings me to your assignment. It's a 4-step process:

STEP 1: In March 2011 Scott asked the blogging world this question: Do you Intervene Skillfully?. (Go ahead and take a look - it's short, I promise.) He quotes directly from a longer article from the Kansas Leadership Center, citing the definitions of...

• "balcony"
• "defaults/default behavior" and
• "intervene skillfully" 

These three terms align with the Consciousness of Context piece of the EIL framework which you read about for class. Many of you realized that the Context facet is the piece of EIL with which you feel least comfortable, so hopefully this new information will help. Keep this in mind as you move forward with this blog post and your final consulting project.

STEP 2: Go back to chapter 2 in your EIL book (the chapter on Environmental Awareness.) Marcy and Scott challenge the reader to "get on the balcony" : 

"The next time you attend a meeting of an organization in which you are involved, pay close attention to what is going on around you. Think about the meeting and the organization as a whole. As you watch the meeting or activity, observe the following environmental factors:" (Shankman & Allen, 2008, p. 15)

... and they then provide a list of questions to ask yourself as you observe the group. I want you to do this. In the next 10 days, before our class on Oct. 18th. Head to a meeting of the student organization you chose for your final project and be the proverbial fly on the wall, using the list of questions outlined in the book as a guide for your observation and reflection. Get into it. Take notes.

If for some reason that organization doesn't have a meeting or activity in the next week, choose another student group to observe. It can be a group you are a member of or not. Just remember what your task is: "get on the balcony." It's an exercise in observation - not participation, not interviewing - observation. So, this should NOT be a meeting you set up to specifically ask them questions about your final project. You should put yourself in the position to watch, listen, think, and analyze what is happening around you without actually playing a part in the meeting.

"Developing environmental awareness can be difficult. It is a skill that must be practiced intentionally. Why? For many, it is often human nature to jump in and react to stimuli rather than observe." (Shankman & Allen, 2008, p. 17)

[Side note: This aligns with what we learned about in the Skilled Facilitator Approach earlier this quarter, too. Would you look at that... :)]

STEP 3: Using the questions posed in the EIL book on pages 15-16 as a guide, I want you to report back on "your view from the balcony" by blogging about it. You can change names to protect the innocent, but paint the picture of your chosen group for the rest of #SLA2572.  Understandably, you will be making some assumptions, but the idea is to be a keen, thoughtful, and intentional observer, thus making your assumptions educated ones. This blog post will adhere to our normal timeline, so the post is due by Wed. Oct. 17 at 11:59pm. You'll then need to comment on a class member's blog post by the start of class on Thurs. Oct. 18.

STEP 4: I need some documentation. Please turn in the following in class on Oct. 18:

• A copy of the notes you took during your observation of your student organization
• The name and email address of the student organization's leader with whom you are working directly and the name and email address of the student organization's adviser.

Okay, team. Make me proud.

- ProfRoc