Building Blocks

Some of the exercises covered in the previous post covered the aspect of analysing the end goal. Now, I’m sure that what we covered was no where near the available exercises. But doing several exercises servers a purpose, even if you already know your goal in life.

Each exercise allows to examine the goals from different angles. If you identify different goals using different angles, then perhaps you haven’t found the right goals, or just more of them. Either how they can increase your confidence in the goals you identify.

Now confidence is what we achieve with unit testing as well. In an way, we can see unit tests as a way to examine the code under test from a different angle. Different compared to the code that will execute the code under test.

Just a thought.

In a previous post I described a session where I’m helping a former colleague in her 7 Habits course. I’ll just describe the exercises me and Anna covered.

Homework

Anna had me do some homework. To think of which things affect me, what worries me about them, and which of them I can affect.

Now I went over this at least three times, the most meaningful of them was one was on the subway on my way to work. I combined a list of things that affected me and what had worries and which I could affect. The list is no where near complete, but it served as material for a discussion.

The purpose of this is to know, what I can affect. What my decisions affect and in what way. By knowing this I can decide how I want to act based on knowing what I can affect, and do so before I act.

Positive feedback

I really liked this exercise as I need to conduct analysis of these things on my self.

Anna had me conduct a list of people which I perceive have had a positive impact in my life. Secondly she had me imagine each and one of them on my 60th birthday, giving a speech. Then note the keywords they would use to describe me.

By knowing this I can identify how I want others to perceive me. By knowing how I want other to perceive me I can act accordingly, it helps me identify the goals I wish to achieve.

This helps me with the second habit, Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Vision.

Negative feedback

It is not enough to know what you want to become, you must also know what you don’t want to become. This is similar to when I write a vision document for a software feature, I describe what I want to solve, but also what I don’t want to solve with this specific feature.

We conducted another list, this time of people whom I dislike. Next, why I dislike them. Most of the time you project negative aspects of yourself onto others. By identifying what you dislike in others, you can identify which aspects you do not want to reflect on your own person.

Current work goals

Identify the three most important goals you have in your current position, imagine a situation in which these are solved. Now identify what you have to do to get there.

A Former colleague of mine is attending a Seven Habits course. She asked me to help her out with her homework. The concept is that we go through some exercise as she takes on different habits in the course.

Today we met for the first time to discuss this. Basically Anna got to explain the first two habits to me, and we did some exercise. I’ll go through some of my thoughts for the exercise but first I have to take a moment to elaborate on this teaching technique.

I like the strategy that Anna’s coarse is taking. It is a leadership course, and I believe that part of being a good leader is also to be a good teacher. Idea to have participants of the course work with another outside the course serves several purposes.

First we have to admit it serves a market purpose, as Anna goes through the course she will spread the word to people around her who are interested in leadership aspects.

But also this will serve three purposes for Anna. One is the built in reiteration of the course material helping her remember the material they’ve gone through in the course.

The second is that she gets my invaluable input, just kidding. She gets to see discuss the habits with the a fresh pair of eyes. She gets to  explain the details, and at some points dive deeper into the details of the the habit under study.

Last but not least, Anna gets to practice pedagogical leadership with someone.

Now I hope I can provide Anna with some good input. I’ll have to put some work in for the second purpose of the exercise, to help Anna get the most out of the course she can. As this is the part that I truly can affect to make sure these exercise produce the most value.