Over the last week at the ENvision conference here in El Salvador, I have enjoyed some up-close interaction with 100-200 Emerging Leaders from the US and across Central America. In formal settings, I have spoken on the issues that Emerging Leaders face as they move through their 20s and 30s. Topics like formal and informal education, mentoring and coaching, team participation and team leadership have been part of the sessions.
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Five Resolutions for Aspiring Leaders: Summary
Emerging leaders have so much promise ahead of them. In the Harvard Business Review posting by Coleman and George, they highlight five important steps emerging leaders can take in their growth process. I thought they were so good, I have summarized the main points here.
- Find a Mentor
- Form a Group
- Volunteer
- Travel to a New Country
- Ask Questions
Good to Great, 1-5 and more…
When the famous book, Good to Great, by Jim Collins first came out a decade ago, our senior team was eager to implement some of the key insights within our organization. As we began to look around, we realized that while we did have some areas that we wanted to move from Good to Great, we also had areas that we wanted to move from poor to adequate. Our often-used scale was born.
Vision: I can see clearly…
Vision: Different Levels
Vision: What is 2012 looking like?
Have you thought about 2012? I hope so. The more you think about it, the more likely you are to engage “what could be.” If you wander into 2012, you may come up with less. Here are some things to mull over as we move toward New Years Day.
We often think of vision as something exciting and far-reaching. It can be that, but the meaning can be multifaceted.
- A preferred future
- A picture of “what could be” not “what is.”
- A unifying plan for you and your team
- Something that will motivate you to stay on track (get healthy)
- The whole puzzle or a segment (your life vs your finances)
- Vision can mean to see more clearly: See yourself, others, your situation and the world around you more clearly.
Can I encourage you to think about “what could be” in 2012? Here are some next steps that you can take in your vision development.
- Do you have any past vision language or thoughts that you can draw upon?
- What can you imagine for the future beyond 2012?
- Brainstorm with some co-workers, friends, and/or family members.
- Take some time away from the hurry of everyday life to consider the future.
- Write down some thoughts and then come back in a week or two and revisit them.
Research tells us that if you give more thoughts to your vision and outcomes for the year ahead, you are much more likely to move ahead.
Reading Tips for Leaders
There have been a number of things written about leaders and reading such as “leaders are readers.” Most of us would agree that reading for today’s leaders is important. However, after having taught many years of college reading and writing as well as graduate courses on leadership development, I have found that many leaders struggle with reading. After talking with a young leader that I have been coaching about this topic, I decided to revisit the topic.
Don’t Read Every Word
One of the first habits I try to break with leaders and grad students is the reading of every word silently in your mind (subvocalizing). Are you doing that even now with this sentence? Our minds can process so much faster than we can read aloud in our brains. This is a habit you want to avoid. Also, I find that most people LOSE retention when they read every word.
Remember the Phone Book
We don’t read a phone book cover to cover. We take a minute or less to find what we need. Use the same approach with your reading. Dive in and find what you need.
Hierarchical approach to reading
This approach to reading has several key points:
- Don’t read every word
- Start at the tip of the pyramid and work down, going deeper as need
- Start with the 3-5 main ideas and expand out to the 12-24 things you need
- Write down notes as needed
60 seconds: Take one minute and find out all you can about the book or article. You will be surprised at how much you can take in.
5 minutes: Next, take five minutes and do the same thing. Take in the cover, table of contents, headings, charts, etc. You can feel free to take notes on a computer, in a notebook, or on a 5×7 index card. You can even do this a few times over a few days. You will be amazed at how much you can gain.
60 minutes: If you have a full book to digest, you can now take a full hour to work through the material. Again, use a computer or notebook to quickly take notes as needed. If you own the book, you can also use a highlighter.
Selections: At this point, you can feel free to take some pages and review them. You may need a few minutes or more to focus on specific segments. In some cases you may spend 30 minutes on one page if it is that important.
If you must read every page
For some courses, the expectation is that you read every page. Okay, set your watch and cover 1-4 pages per minute. Remember, you may need to read/engage every page, but you want to avoid reading every word. In many cases this just lowers retention and is very time-consuming.
Results
If you learn to mix these strategies with your learning styles you may find that:
- You better understand the big ideas of the book/article
- You have better retention of the key concepts
- You learn much more in less time
- You can read a book or two per week/month
- You will enjoy the process more
Accreditation: Five Criteria
Rick Mann, PhD
I mentioned earlier that Crown College will have a North Central Association (NCA) accreditation team on campus this week. Their high level task will be to evaluate the work of Crown College on five criteria:
- Mission and Integrity
- Preparing for the Future
- Student Learning and Effective Teaching
- Acquisition, Discovery, and Application of Knowledge
- Engagement and Service
You may say that these are nice topics for a college to deal with and leave it at that. In fact, these five criteria are well-framed for most every individual leader and organization. Let’s take a second look at them.
- Mission and Integrity: Do we have a clear mission that directs our overall purpose and direction? Is our work collaborative and does it allow for the input of others? Do we live out our mission with integrity?
- Preparing for the Future: Are we making progress in accomplishing our mission with clear points of assessment along the way? Do we have the resources (financial, infrastructure, personnel, etc.) to build a sustaining and strong organization into the distant future?
- Student Learning and Effective Teaching: Are we delivering to our stakeholders a quality product and/or experience? Does our brand promise match their brand experience?
- Acquisition, Discovery, and Application of Knowledge: Are we life-long learners and are we a part of a learning organization? Are we consistently building our capacity to understand the world around us and deliver value to our stakeholders?
- Engagement and Service: Are we engaged in a mutually-beneficial relationship with our stakeholders. Are we learning from them and are they learning from us? Are we considered a high-value partner?
Where are you and your organization in this journey? Let know if we can be of assistance in building your strength, focus, and capacity.
Accreditation: A Necessary Blessing
Rick Mann, PhD
This week at Crown College we will be hosting an accreditation team from the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association (NCA). Most colleges and universities are regionally accredited by an external accreditation agency. Our accreditation is with NCA who also accredits institutions such as the University of Minnesota, Wheaton College, University of Colorado, Ohio State University, etc. Regional accreditation is the highest level of accreditation in the US.
Every 10 years, we put together a self-study made up of hundreds of pages that document the work that we do. An accreditation team then comes on campus and essentially does an audit to see if what we say we do is actually what we do. It can be an exhausting process that requires hundreds of hours of preparation across the campus. Some would call this a necessary evil. I call it a necessary blessing.
The benefits of having an outside group review our work are many. First, it requires that we have greater clarity on what we are trying to accomplish. Every organization tends to get comfortable with activity rather than focusing on strategic outcomes. An outside group helps us to be more focused than we might be on our own. Second, this processes raises the bar on not just talking about the work that we do, but demonstrating our effectiveness at doing what we say we are doing. Third, we learn from the process. Those who come to our campus are called Consultant-Evaluators which means they come not only to review our work, but to help us do our work better. Lastly, the process will result in some suggestions on what we can better in the years ahead.
Sure, this all requires a lot of work. But our goal is to provide the best possible education we can in carrying out the mission of Crown College in the lives of our students. We should not expect anything less.
If you are a part of a not-for-profit, church, or for-profit organization that does not have an external accreditation group, I want to encourage you to seek out an individual or team that can help you move forward as an organization by taking a look at:
- What is your mission?
- Are you effective in carrying out your mission? How do you know?
- Where are the gaps between what you would like to do and what you are doing?
- How can you move toward greater missional effectiveness?
If our team at Crown College can be of help, please feel free to contact us and we would be happy to help you with building a stronger future.
