Archive for "Leadership"
Team Building Day
Posted on February 23, 2014 by Ching under Leadership.
To celebrate our team’s 2013 results, we decided to have a team building day. Amy organized a fun day that started out with a few hours of volunteer work at the Kansas Food Bank and concluded with lunch and bowling at The Alley.
We worked on a couple of different tasks at the Kansas Food Bank. Our first task was to box up some food items. They set up an assembly line for us and we each had our stations. Each box started out empty and ended up filled with all sorts of stuff — pasta, cornbread mix, mashed potatoes, canned goods, jelly, pasta, oatmeal, etc.
This is an example of one of the completed boxes. Josh and Chad were at the end of the line taping each box shut. It worked out really well and we ran out of one of the items before long and had to stop after that.
We got a short break after that before starting our next activity — packaging and boxing up cereal — so we all ended up trotting over the the Donut Whole. Several of my coworkers hadn’t been there before.
After our break we returned to complete our next volunteer activity. This group photo was taken after we finished.
Our next stop was The Alley for lunch and bowling.
I bowled pretty decently but not well enough to beat Amy. She was the one to beat on Friday. Isaac was a good sport and didn’t pout about it.
Hashtag, we had a really fantastic day of team building.
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Pictures From Our Final Leadership Elite Class
Posted on June 8, 2013 by Ching under Leadership.
I completed Leadership Elite through the Center for Management Development at Wichita State University last month. I wish I would have known that we were going to be photographed on our last day. I would have fixed my hair and worn make up. LOL.
This is a photo of me with Bridget, Reed, and Dr. Graham.
This is our team photo. My teammates are (from left) David, Kerry, and Josh. I’m not sure how the teams were assigned, but I ended up on the tall team. LOL.
We all got desk clocks because our team did the best in the quizzes. Although, blue team (Reed’s team) gave us a run for it toward the end. We took off to an early lead, but we were running about even there are the end. They didn’t have Kerry on their team, though. She (and Adrian from the blue team) got 100% on the quizzes. She didn’t miss any of the questions at all. I joked that she Kerried our team and thus we came out on top. I’m corny and I love puns. Sue me.
Dr. Graham was one of my favorite professors in grad school so I was really grateful for the opportunity to take another one of his classes. Leadership Elite is a fantastic program and I highly recommend it. The fancy plaque is nice too.
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Be A Role Model
Posted on May 5, 2013 by Ching under Confessions, Family, Leadership.
As we were leaving the rec center after my Zumba class yesterday, we walked by a mom and four kids getting out of their car. All the kids were very young. None of them were older than ten. I think the oldest kid was probably seven or eight at best. One of the kids had apparently left one of the rear passenger side doors open. The mom yelled, “Shut the fucking door!” This is what drew our attention to them. We would not have noticed them otherwise.
“That explains a lot,” I told Brian once we got in the car. I guess people grow up hearing that sort of language. They hear it so much that it becomes natural and eventually becomes part of their vocabulary. It’s so pervasive in their language that they don’t even realize that they’re saying it. Once they find themselves in a professional environment, it becomes a challenge to change and speak in a different manner and every now and then they end up slipping back to their natural tendencies.
I’m lucky that English is not my native language. I didn’t learn to cuss in English because my parents didn’t say or use those words. Actually, they didn’t cuss in our native language either. Cussing just wasn’t a regular part of our vocabulary. I’ve learned to cuss over the years, but it still feels gawky to me. You know when I’m really angry because then I force myself to cuss. However, it comes out sounding so strange that I (and the person I’m yelling at) just end up laughing at my awkwardness. Yes, I’m an awkward cusser.
Brian and I have no kids of our own so we have no business offering parenting advice. However, I can offer an observation. Actions speak louder than words so please be a role model to your children. You can preach against using foul language to your children but, if they grow up hearing you use foul language in everyday life and everyday conversations, chances are they’re going to follow your lead. Kids (or people in general) will often do as you do, not as you say.
They say that our attitudes, values, and beliefs form at a very early age. Corrupt your children if you must, but at least make the early years count. Wait until they’re older to start cussing around them. LOL. They will thank you for your great example later.
P.S. Thank you, mom and dad, for not teaching me to cuss.
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I’m Talented at Being Annoying
Posted on April 26, 2013 by Ching under Confessions, Leadership.
Last night I shared with Brian some of the things I’ve learned in Leadership Elite over the last few weeks. I told him that talent is more important than experience, education, and intelligence when selecting someone for a job. I told him that even the most menial jobs require talent. He didn’t buy it.
I read him some excerpts from the book that we’re reading in class, First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
- I asked him the following questions:
- Is there a 4th of July in Mexico?
- If the doctor gave you three pills and told you to take one every half hour, how long would they last?
- How many species of each type of animal did Moses take into the ark?
Guess what. He got all three questions wrong. I told him that it’s not him. It’s because of his filters. Our filters are the building blocks of our talents. He was like, “Not this again!” Did I mention that he really hates it whenever I go through training?
Anyway, I did get him to agree that he has a talent for organizing things. He can bring order to the most chaotic of environments. His desk is always neat and organized. He’s even helped me clean and organize my own desk. When there isn’t an organized process for doing things, he creates one. When I look at my messy closet, I am overwhelmed; yet he can organize everything within minutes. Organization is not just something he is good at — he’s talented at it.
I thought for a moment and asked, “So what’s my talent?”
“Being annoying,” Brian replied. After I glared at him and we laughed together, he admitted, “Actually, you are talented at learning things.”
I think he’s absolutely right. It explains why I learn choreo in Zumba really quickly. It explains why I love going to school. It explains why I’m always eager to receive training and acquire new skills. It explains why I enjoy getting up early on Saturday mornings and sitting in a Spanish class that I’m not even enrolled in. It explains why I embrace new information rather than rejecting it. It’s not because I’m gullible or impressionable, though I am at times. It’s because I’m an empty cup ready to be filled. I’m a sponge that just wants to soak things up. I am this way because I have a talent for learning (or so we’ve concluded).
You know what excites me most about this revelation? I just learned something new about myself.
FOLLOW UP:
While I was typing this post, the doorbell rang. Brian answered the door and talked to the guy outside.
I was like, “Who was that?” Apparently it’s some guy going door to door, offering lawn care services.
“That would suck,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Going door to door.”
“Not if you’re talented at it!”
And that, my friends, is the reason why talent is important when hiring someone to do a job.
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Thank You for My Free Book
Posted on September 28, 2012 by Ching under Leadership.
I drove to Topeka yesterday to listen to Bruce Tulgan talk about leadership. That’s leadership with a lower case L, by the way. I normally ride with Darcy, but she didn’t sign up for the training this time around. So I ended up driving myself because Isaac accidentally left me out of the carpool email. It worked out okay though because I need to drive more anyway. I’m always the passenger.
Brian always worries about me when I have to drive long distances because I turn into a narcoleptic in the car. It wasn’t too bad this time. I was actually alert the entire drive home. Maybe it was because of Tulgan’s energizing talk that morning.
Unlike other speakers we’ve had in the past where everyone gets a copy of their book for free, Tulgan actually makes you work for yours. If you are engaged and ask a question, you get rewarded with a free copy of one of his books. Would you have expected anything different from the author of Not Everyone Gets A Trophy
I was fully engaged but had a challenging time coming up with a question to ask (so I could earn my free book, of course). Every time I thought of a question, I also thought of the answer. I know. It’s really hard being me.
Time was running out and he was quickly running out of books to give away so I desperately had to say/ask something. I did get to squeeze in a question (which hopefully wasn’t as bas as Angie’s “Cookies” comment from the latest Survivor episode), but he was out of the hard cover books and only had “Fast Feedback” left, which I already had. Thankfully, Tracey who asked a question earlier and got a copy of It’s Okay to Be the Boss
Thank you, Bruce Tulgan for giving making me work for my free book. (Thanks to Tracey for trading me.) More importantly, thank you for stimulating my brain enough to keep me awake on the drive back to Wichita.
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