Today was another sunny day.
Except for a few sprinkles Sunday afternoon, we’ve been blessed with
gorgeous (albeit not hot) weather which is unusual here. Knock on wood! Breakfast was nice – lots of hot options, including the traditional Irish Breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, fried
tomatoes, and baked beans – so we got fueled up for the day. We met Adrienne at the office this morning,
who continued the friendly tradition and got us set up beautifully. Andrew spent a few minutes going through a
presentation to give us yet a more clear picture of what the company is about,
during which time Jen and I got to sit in the most awesome beanbag chairs ever
and Justin and Jill claimed the white polka-dotted couch. Lia just got the plain red couch.
We decided to tackle the issue of whether or not Wavebob
should enter the Chilean market by researching two main issues today – a PEST
(political, economic, social, and technology) analysis of Chile and a
competitive scan of which other companies are looking at and/or entering the
market. We split out little group into
two teams and went at it all day, with a quick break in the lunch room over the
noon hour…where we somehow got to talking about gangs jumping people in Denver,
which made the poor Irish fellow sitting at the other table decide he might not
want to visit (not really, it wasn’t that bad).
4-5pm was another leader study interview, but this one was a bit more
painful than the others given that we got one-word answers, even to the
follow-on questions we asked to probe deeper.
He seemed a rather unhappy person.
I’m sure that wasn’t his intention and he’d just had a busy and/or tough
day, but it was a good reminder that you make an impression on everyone you
meet and speak to – what will mine be?
How will people remember me? Both
those I interact with regularly, and those I only meet in passing. That can be a rather sobering thought.
Our work day ended with an extended meeting with Andrew to
review what we’d done for the day and discuss priorities for tomorrow, along
with insights and ideas he had for us to pursue. For a very busy CEO, Andrew has given us lots
of time and input so far, which has earned him respect and appreciation.
Team dynamics came into play today too. We have a fantastic team and we all like each
other, but we’re all a bit tired, don’t know each other that well, and are
working on a pretty big project…so expectations don’t always align
perfectly. We’ve done well sharing
opinions and giving each person room to speak, and so far have come to
agreements fairly easily about how to proceed.
But I was reminded that when working in groups, agreement on how to move
forward doesn’t necessarily mean unanimous agreement that it’s the absolute
best way to do it. Everyone should be
heard and validated and I am in full favor of asking questions and pushing
back. But once a decision is made, each
team member must support it or things fall apart. The challenge I’ve found working in school
teams is that unlike the work world where (usually) one person has more
of a stake/responsibility for the project and thus has ultimate decision-making
authority, school team members (usually) have equal stake, and thus it can be
difficult to determine who gets to make the call if five people have five
different ideas.
Also emerging is the tendency to assume other people feel/think the same way someone else does. Making decisions based on that faulty assumption can result in dissatisfaction for some because they've been spoken for inaccurately.
I was also reminded that what’s going on
internally – being tired, etc – can impact interactions with others. As we talked about Monday, am I “hearing the
unheard?” Taking the time to dig deep
enough usually reveals that someone isn’t a particularly terrible person, but
rather, that something was going on inside that (however unintentionally)
seeped out. Not a bad thing for a leader
to remember about him/herself and his/her followers. Speaking of which, I ought to snag a few
hours of sleep…
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