ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN AND ROYAL ROADS An Integrated Look at Leadership Practices By Carrie Voysey

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned: y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learnedthe biggest word of allLOOK. - Robert Fulghum

And Royal Roads

According to Robert Fulghums poem All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten we actually learned all we need to know about leadership and communication at a very young age. The basics, that is. Now that Ive (almost) completed the Graduate Certificate in Professional Communications Management at Royal Roads University, Im able to connect the basics to theory, strategy, tactics and evaluation of team leadership and facilitation,personal leadership, systems thinking, andorganizational leadership at company X. I may share this expanded information with the Director of Communications and Development(my boss) and other members of management at company X in hopes that it will be of benefit to them when connecting with internal and external audiences.

Team Leadership and Facilitation

According to the LEAD 580 learning outcomes, team leadership and facilitation is defined as the ability to facilitate collaboration and productivity in groups and teams. This ability is greatly enhanced by takingsome basic Kindergarten teachings into consideration: y Wash your hands before you eat. y Understand that warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. y Don't hit people.

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Wash your hands before you eat

During the LEAD 580 residency, instructor Paul Mohapel presented a relatively simple model of what takes place when a team or group comes together to make a decision. Drawing from the work of Sam Kaners book, Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making, (New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada, 1966), Mohapel described the process and benefits of divergent and convergent thinking. Convergent thinking involves an assembly of common wisdom or known information. In other words, when faced with a new topic, a group will first repeat what it knows about the topic. Most problem solving occurs this way and for known matters, this is enough to build a solution and proceed. It is instilled, for example, in medical school students. If a physician sees a person with a common cold, they are taught that the symptoms arrived from other peoplefrom someone elses hands to your hands, and from your hands into your nose or eyes. From the convergent evidence of a runny nose, coughing, and chills, a diagnosis and treatment (Be sure to wash your hands!) may be given and nothing else has to happen. However, when the group is confronted with an issue that their common wisdom or known information cannot address, then they begin to talk. They start to look at the topic from many different perspectives he or she may diverge from the information and imagine, or reason about, new possibilities. There are complaints and suggestions, discussion of what has been tried and failed, arguments about alternative ways to pose the questions, and so on. Kaner calls this process the "Divergent Zone", where the group diverges from the initial question in order to address it fully.

Warm cookies and cold milk are GOOD for you

After a period in the Divergent Zone, much may have surfaced and some in the group may begin to get nervous. Their tasty, warm, inviting, comfortable knowledge-based cookies are beingzapped and liquefied with splashes of cold milk. Instead of concrete thoughts patiently following one another, abrupt cross-cuts and transitions from one idea to another and unheard of combinations of elements can be suddenly introduced and mixed into a cauldron of ideas. It is at this point that many individuals and groups may find themselves thinking, Get me outta here! This, says Sam Kaner, could be called the "Groan Zone", in which the group really has to grapple with all the aspects of the problem, all the parties involved, and so on.

Dont hit people

Although the levels of frustration will rise and you may feel like hitting someone, team members need to understand and realize that time spent well and effectively in the Groan Zone makes a big difference in the quality of the outcome. When individual team members learn how to make peace with the Groan

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Zone, they discover that the Groan Zone is where the best learning, thinking and creativity take place. According to blogger Tammy Lenski, the implications of moving through the Groan Zone are these: y Far better understanding of the complexities of the problem. y Greater clarity about individual perspectives and the piece of the whole puzzle that each person y y y holds. Solutions that are built on the foundation of complex understanding. Better use of time spent up front so that time isnt wasted re-visiting problems that were addressed too quickly. Stronger teams better positioned for creative problem-solving.

The best workplace teams arent ones without conflict. Theyre the ones that understand how to navigate the Groan Zone waters with skill and have taken time to learn how to do it. By diverging from what is familiar and moving beyond the known into a new understanding, creativity and advancement are possible and likely. Once the group has moved out of the Groan Zone it starts to bring the many themes and concerns together into an agreement that the group can discuss. Kaner calls the process of pulling a wide variety of points towards a decision point the "Convergent Zone". Here, the group carefully seeks a way to formulate what has to be decided. Finally, the group grapples with the decision as they have agreed to state it. It can be as simple as yes/no or as complex as pages of detail. This phase of making the agreement is the "Closure Zone".

Team Leadership and Facilitation in Practice

The Communications and Development Department at company X would greatly benefit from multiple group exercises in divergent and convergent thinking. Currently, certain members of the department are uncomfortable in the Groan Zone and shy away from it and/or generally stay silent. As a result, divisions are created within the team because the group members that are comfortable with one another, particularly in the Groan Zone, create enhanced relationships between themselves and exclude other members.They also tend to be the ones that come up with the great ideas! However, this is somewhat counter-productive, as other group members may too have valuable, out-ofthe-box ideasto add.

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The idea of divergent and convergent thinking can be applied to the Communications and Development Department in practice by considering the following goal, strategy, tactics and method of evaluation.

Goal
Members of the Communications and Development Department, who are not currently comfortable in the Groan Zone, will be within 3 months of regular meetings.

Strategy
A professional facilitator will be hired to help members of the department successfully move through the Groan Zone and various divergent and convergent thinking exercises.

Tactics
y y y y Hire a facilitator familiar with divergent and convergent thinking processes. Encourage members of the team to come up with relevant, specific scenarios. Ensure all members of the group are present for the session. Schedule regular meetings for the next three months and make sure the concepts learned are practiced.

Evaluation
Hire the professional facilitator back after the three-month period to evaluate and discuss potential for improvement when moving through the divergent and convergent thinking process.

Personal Leadership
In the LEAD 580 learning outcomes, personal leadership is described as the ability to be self aware, able to create constructive relationships with others, and practice ethically, responsibly, and with accountability. These abilities are heightened by considering some of the basic Kindergarten teachings: y Play fair. y Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. y And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learnedthe biggest word of allLOOK.

Play fair
In his article Leadership that Gets Results, Daniel Goleman suggests that leaders need to embrace many styles of leadership in order to be effective. Each style springs from different components of emotional intelligence. And each component of emotional intelligence generally invites leaders to play fair (ethically and responsibly) when managing themselves and their relationships.

Live a balanced life and LOOK

Fellow student Rachel Laird posted a very insightful observation online as part of the LEAD 580 Preliminary Exploration: Scharmers article [Uncovering the Blind Spot of Leadership] bumps up against Golemans when referencing the need for leaders to have strong self awareness; allowing the time and space for reflection of our own capacities, natural skill sets, pre-dispositions and biases seems a crucial element for personal leadership development. As Bill OBrien is quoted by Scharmer, The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor. If truly great leaders are motivated by and operate from within, as indicated by Scharmer, then it makes sense that the quality of attention and intention that the leader brings to any situation will largely depend

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on how the leader spends their time (in terms of living a balanced life or not), the amount of work the leader wants to put into their inner journey and how they LOOK at, study and view not only themselves, but also the problem at hand.

Personal Leadership in Practice

As a member of the Communications and Development Department at company X, I run at full tilt all day, every day. Eightof us serve and fulfil the communications and development requirements of approximately 550 staff.Therefore, the task lists are usually long and unwieldy. There is little time to eat, let alone reflect, learn and determine the style of leadership that would be effective in each situation that comes up. As a result, we are faced with irrational decision-making processes, lack of planning, frustration, and total reliance on seat-of-our-pants flight patterns for completing projects and tasks. This ongoing chaos is not healthy on a personal or organizational level. Things have to change if I/we are going to be successful moving forward. By putting the personal leadership suggestions of Goldman and Scharmer into practice, and considering the following goal, strategy, tactics and method of evaluation, members of the Communications and Development Department, including myself, may further their progress towards creating constructive relationships with others and practicingeffective means of leadership.

Goal
To play fair and live a balanced lifelearn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Strategy
A personal action plan will be created to determine how and when education can take place in reference to emotional intelligence and personal leadership development (including drawing, painting, singing, etc.).

Tactics
y y y y y y Take a course on time management. Learn to breathe. Learn to listen. Grow emotional intelligence through courses and evaluation. Take a lunch break. Develop a personal action plan with supervisor.

Evaluation
Meet with the department regularly to discuss whether or not the changes implemented are useful and helpful and conduct 360-degree evaluations of one another to gain insight and perspective.

Systems thinking
Systems thinking is the ability to apply systems theory and engage in systemic processes that reflect the complex interdependencies between parts and the whole systemas per the LEAD 580 learning outcomes. This definition abides well with the Kindergarten teachings of: y Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. y Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cupthey all die. So do we.

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Be aware of wonder and prepare to die

In their article Awakening Faith in an Alternate Future, Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski and Flowers make the point that organizations and institutions are living systemsthey are continually growing, changing and re-creating themselves along with the environments that they interact with. The writers contest that the basic problem with global institutions is that they have not yet become aware of themselves as living. Once they realize they are living systems they will conserve features essential to their existence and seek to evolve. The features that are non-essential to their existence will therefore, in essence, die. For organizations to become aware of themselves as living, deeper levels of learning need to take place which will in turn create increasing awareness of the larger whole or system. From this learning, a growing sense of wonder and thinking starts to take place beyond initial preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. When this happens, the forces shaping a situation can shift from re-creating the past to manifesting or realizing an emerging future.

Systems Thinking in Practice

By seeking deeper learning, the members of the Communications and Development Department and I may be enabled to expand our perceptions and awareness of the college system and provide new, improved actions that serve it.

Goal
On a daily basis: go beyond reactive learning, which is governed by habitual ways of thinking and of continuing to see the world within the familiar categories were comfortable with, and reach deeper learning, which increases awareness of the larger whole or system and leads to actions that increasingly serve the emerging whole and its future.

Strategy
Have someone (an instructor at the college?) teach a workshop on the department the difference between reactive and deep learning and provide exercises and practices on how to reach into deeper learning regularly.

Tactics
y y y y y y Focus is on what is signified. Relate previous knowledge to new knowledge. Relate theoretical ideas to everyday experience. Listen. Take the workshop. Shift awareness through spiritual means.

Evaluation
The instructor would establish learning outcomes and an assessment process as part of the workshop.

Organizational Leadership
By definition of the LEAD 580 learning outcomes, organizational leadership is the ability to understand the structural and cultural nature of organizations and organizational change, and apply these concepts to challenges, issues or opportunities.

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When taking a closer look, individuals involved in organizational leadership follow some of the basic Kindergarten teachings:
y y y y y Flush. Don't take things that aren't yours. Take a nap every afternoon. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess.

Flush etc.
As described in Linda Morgans Positive Deviance materials, every community or organization contains certain individuals or groups whose uncommon but successful behaviours or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers.These individuals or groups have access to exactly the same resources and face the same challenges and obstacles as their colleaguesthey may or may not flush the toilet, they probably do not take things that arent theirs, they might take naps every afternoon, they inevitablyput things back where they find them and they most likely clean up their own messes.They are normal, everyday people who have figured something out that works!These individuals are called Positive Deviants. Positive Deviance (PD) is based on anapproach where communities (including those found within organizations) are stimulated to discover their own existing Positive Deviant practices and establish strategies for practicing and disseminating these behaviours within their communities. The community owns the entire process including: the problem, solutions, discovery, practice and measurement. Community ownership evolves from involvement. It is the community that discovers the existing, uncommon, successful behaviours and strategies and unleashes great ideas. Through the process of involving people who havent been involved before and bringing different groups together to discover the wisdom that lies within the community, there is often a profound social change. The diagrams below demonstrate the change over time within an organization undertaking a PD approach to a problem. The business as usual approach has the leadership making all the decisions and the front-line workers carrying out those decisions. In the PD process, leadership is engaged in supporting ideas and removing barriers, but the front-line workers, those expert in the actual day-to-day activities, have been engaged in discovering existing solutions and creating new ideas. The dynamic involved in the transition generated by PD can eventually transform the whole workplaceimproving aspects such as morale, engagement, trust and communication.

D.When to Use Positive Deviance

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Organizational Leadership in Practice

It is without a doubt that company X could benefit by implementing PD practices at various levels in the organization. Considering the subsequent goal, strategy, tactics and evaluation may be a good place for the college to start.

Goal
Engage and build a team of individuals at company X who are willing to learn about and improve internal communicationpractices.

Strategy
Engage and identify leaders in communications practices at the college, extend broad invitations for involvement, conduct an orientation meeting to introduce the PD concept and approach, build a team.

Tactics
y y y y y y y y y Leaders should be updated at critical points throughout the process and invited to be involved in activities so that they can support the overall process and address resource constraints. Extend invitations to participate throughout the PD approach. Introduce PD approach in different ways such as: storytelling, personalizing the concept, power point. Hire a facilitator well-versed in PD. Demonstrate the difference between the PD approach and traditional approaches. Present data about the problem. Seek variety, diversity and representation of groups from within the college. Support community decision making process. Encourage the team to engage others in doing things and facilitate the process.

Evaluation
Track the progress and answer questions such as: How will the benefit of the changes be measured? What is the effectiveness of the intervention? How will this be shared with the larger community?

4. Communication
The learning outcomes of LEAD 580 describe communication as The ability to listen and communicate well with others, in both oral and written form, and encourage others engagement in effective communication. When communicating and learning to speak and listen properly in Kindergarten, we learned that: y You should say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. y You should share everything. y When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Not a lot has changed since then.

Say youre sorry and share everything

Whenever possible, a two-way symmetrical approach should be used to communicate with the public as defined by Grunig. This is a method that is specific to dialogue and research, has an emphasis on managing conflict/resolving disputes, and has an objective of strengthening relationships and reputation through mutual understanding and accommodation with key publics or stakeholders.

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By building relationships with stakeholders with this approach, organizations and individuals will build trust with one another. And when this trust takes place, it is easier to share everything and be transparent about the issues at hand. It is also easier to say Im sorry when necessary.

When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together
This is perhaps the most important, basic reminder for communicating effectively. It reminds us that when we put a message out to the world on behalf of an organization, people will most likely react in some way. As communicators, we are responsible for watching the traffic or reaction and determining what the best next steps may be from a reputation management and public relations perspective. It also reminds us that we need to hold hands and stick together when facing the ebbs and flows of our publicsbe consistent with messaging, support one another, be informed, and refer to our communication plans when in doubt.

Communication in Practice
Company X will be provided with a very thorough crisis communications plan in the near future. One of the key components of having a successful crisis communications plan is ensuring that internal staff is aware of the processes within it. The plan will be communicated while keeping the following goal, strategy, tactics and evaluation in mind. Goal Introduce the crisis communication plan to all pertinent staff members and rehearse scenarios by July 2011. Strategy Meet with management to discuss process/action plan in terms of roll out. Tactics y Present at management meetings. y Put a follow-up process in place to ensure managers have communicated with their staff. y Meet with staff members face-to-face. y Attend rehearsals. y Gather feedback and alter the plan to meet the needs of the internal and external audiences. Evaluation The plan will be evaluated and most likely altered after rehearsals take place and feedback is gathered.

Conclusion
We have covered substantial ground in the past months on the subjects of leadership, stakeholder relations and crisis communications. The ideas presented here are the tip of the iceberg in terms of the vast amount of learning that actually took place. I feel like my perspective has been widened and Ive evolved to a higher plane of understanding in all said subject areas. I think its called grade 1.

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References
Fulghum, Robert. (1990). All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. Villard Books: New York, page 6-7. Grunig, J. (ed).(1992). Chapter 11: Models of public relations and communication. In Excellence in Public Relations and Communication Management (pp.285-325). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Kaner, Sam.(1966). Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making.New Society Publishers: Gabriola Island, B.C. Lenski, Tammy. Conflict at Work: Making Peace with the Groan Zone (February 1, 2007). In Tammy Lenskis blog. Retrieved from http://lenski.com/conflictzen/conflict-at-work-makingpeace-with-the-groan-zone/ Mohapel, Paul. (2010). Effective Teams. Retrieved from Royal Roads University, LEAD 580 moodlewebsite: http://learner.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=45999 Morgan, Linda. (2010). Chapter 1 - Introduction to Positive Deviance. Retrieved from Royal Roads University LEAD 580 moodle website: http://learner.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=67520 Morgan, Linda. (2010). Chapter 2Getting Started. Retrieved from Royal Roads University LEAD 580 moodle website: http://learner.royalroads.ca/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=67520 Scharmer, O. (2008). Uncovering the blind spot of leadership. Leader to Leader Journal. Winter 2008, pp. 52-59. Senge, P., Scharmer, O., Jaworski, J. & Flowers, B. (2004). Presence; Human purpose and the field of the future. New York, NY. Currency Doubleday.

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