02/22/07

Today we watched a movie on the different personalities that people can have and do have within organizations. I liked the part that talked about the different kinds of people and how they act. There are the people who like to encourage others and are always positive saying "We can do this". These people are important to keep a positive attitude within the organization and they help when things get hard and people want to give up. There are also the people who just love to be around people and interact with other people. These kind of people are also really important because everything depends upon communication in an organization and these are people who love to communicate! I think applying and having all these types of people in an organization are important. I love our class because I can see example of all different types of people within our own class and because of this we are able to get things effectively accomplished.

I really liked the presentation that was given in class on Tuesday. It was just a subtle reminder to me of what the vision of this school really is and what I need to do to make that vision happen. I don't just want to waste my time at this school. I really am so lucky to be here and to be having this experience and I want to take as much as I can from it. That's why I think if everything works out in this class, it will be one of the many great experiences that I will have had at this University.

2/15/07

Today was a short class, but we still got stuff done! We now have groups to be dividedin within our people group so we can start getting things accomplished. I'm really excited about this class and the opportunity to do something that I can talk about or put on a resume. I think we can really make this work if we all work together and learn how to communicate effectively! So let's get to work!

1/13/07

I felt like class went a million and one times better on Tuesday then it did last Thursday. I am really grateful for the organizations group who took the initiative to make this class get somewhere and actually did some organizing. I think that we are now starting to see a vision of where we want to be and what we need to do to get there. Now all we need to do is start working towards it! I also really liked the idea Bro. Adams brought up about backcasting. We need to look to the future and say what am I doing now or what can I do now to get me there. A lot of times if we don't do that, we won't ever end up making it to that goal.

Insights 2/9/07

Nicci! Well said! I think that's exactly what are class needs to do. Let's "act and not be acted upon." Absolutely nothing will get done without acting. Let's take a step of faith into the darkness and do something! So we don't know exactly what we're supposed to do. But we'll never know what we could have done if we just sit and wait for something to happen. I say we start doing the things Nicci has suggested and anything else someone in the class thinks we could start working on and get going!

Insight from 2/6/07

One thing that we talked about in class was the threshold of dysfunction. I liked this idea because I've seen example of it in my own life. The threshold of dysfunction is where you have a lot of things that need to be done which all take a certain amount of energy to do. So then you start acting dysfunctionally because of all the things that need to get done in your threshold. When this happens you don't get things done effectively and sometimes you don't even get them done at all. Like Bro. Adams was saying, this happens a lot around midterm time. Papers are due, tests need to be taken, plus all our normal activities. I think that one way we can improve so that we don't start acting dysfunctionally is by not procrastinating. Also a way to improve this is to higher our threshold so that we can functionally handle more tasks.

Insights from 2/1/07

Today in class we discussed some of Steven Covey's methods. We talked about the line of maturity and how their is interdependance, independance, dependance, counter dependance, and codependance. The part of this line that our class will be participating in is the dependance to independance. In this area there are three things that need to be accomplished. First we have to be proactive. I liked how even though Bro. Adams was late to class on thursday, we got class started and began teaching each other. That is a good example of being proactive and acting rather than being acted upon. This is an important concept in a organization because if everybody just waits around for someone else to act, then nobody will act and the organization or business will not progress, but instead begin to digress. The second thing we have to do is begin with the end in mind. We need to figure out what we want as an ending result for this class and start doing what we need to get there with that goal in mind. And the third thing is putting first things first. I think by following these three things we will be well on our way to making the progress and achieving the goals we have for this class.