A642.1.4.RB - Assignment: Your Creative Genius

A642.1.4.RB - Assignment: Your Creative Genius

Create a Reflection Blog (RB) that discusses the top five creative talents that you have and how you use them and then list the top five creative talents that you wish you had and what they would do for you.

I have never really thought about my “top five creative talents” so this is not an easy assignment. After giving it some thought though, this is what I came up with:

1.      I am good at editing and putting my thoughts in writing.

2.      I am good at looking at something from a different perspective.

3.      I am good at creative problem solving and deduction.

4.      I am goof at seeing the beauty in everyday things.

5.      I am good at networking and bringing people together. (Not matchmaking – but knowing who can help who. I’m terrible at matchmaking.)  

The top five creative talents I wish I had are even more difficult figure out but this is what I came up with:

1.      I wish I was able to be more strategic in my career

2.      I wish I could stop editing myself – stop holding back my ideas

3.      I wish I was more disciplined.

4.      I wish I could pick up abstract ideas faster

5.      I wish I was a better public speaker

1) Show the creative skills you currently are aware of. Be certain to discuss: the object of each skill in terms of how you use it; the challenges it creates for you; the context you use it in and how you define success. Do this for all the creative skills you are currently aware of.

I am good at editing and putting my thoughts in writing.

            The object of this skill is effective communication. I try to make sure that when I write something, my intention, tone, and words get my message across effectively and in a meaningful way. The challenges this creates for me is understanding my audience. In order to be an effective communicator, I need to know who I’m communicating with and what they need from me. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work but I try to do my best at communicating effectively any time I set out to write something. I define success when the person or entity I’m trying to communicate effectively with is satisfied with the information I have given them.

I am good at looking at something from a different perspective.

            The object of this skill is effective problem solving. Before I start trying to solve a problem, I try to imagine all sides of the issue. I try to think about all of the people impacted by the problem and how they would see success in problem solving. The challenges this creates for me is how to solve problems in a way where the most good is done while not alienating everyone who didn’t get what they wanted. Obviously, you can’t please everyone and I don’t see myself as a people pleaser. Instead, I just try to understand everyone’s perspective and come up with the solution that makes the most sense to the biggest stakeholder. For example, when a supplier is going to be late on a shipment, if this is something that doesn’t occur often, I work with them to make sure that they don’t get a negative rating on their key performance indicators. A negative rating could result in them not being able to bid on future business. Now, if the supplier is consistently late on shipment or shipping bad parts, then I will be less likely to help them because we clearly need to see their poor performance so we can either help them recover or – and after all else has failed – find a new supplier.  The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work but it does help when dealing with family matters and even when talking with friends. I define success when the problem can be seen from all perspectives and everyone becomes engaged in the problem solving process.  

I am good at creative deduction.

            The object of this skill is also effective problem solving – but also in effective problem defining. The challenges this creates for me is making sure that I understand fully what the problem is versus what everyone else thinks the problem is. This is something that I’ve practiced with Lean techniques like Ishikawa diagrams or just drilling down with the Five Why practice. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work. When a forklift driver continuously pokes the forks of his vehicle through wooden crates full of expensive airplane parts, we need to find out why this keeps happening instead of just assuming the forklift driver is inept. It gives the problem the benefit of the doubt when you drill into it to find out why something happens. Poor training? Faulty forks? Poorly marked crate? It’s important to not only solve problems effectively but to solve the right problem. I define success when the right problem is solved – and people stop poking holes in wooden crates.  

I am good at seeing the beauty in everyday things.

            The object of this skill is about balance. Working in a high stress environment, it is important to find balance wherever you can. Seeing the beauty in a small gesture of kindness or in the color of the sky when I’m in the middle of a tense teleconference helps change the tone of the moment. The challenges this creates for me is just remembering to look for the small things that make me smile. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work – but it’s beneficial in my life in general as well. I define success when I am able to take a deep breath and reset in the middle of a tense or stressful situation. When I am able to find and appreciate that balance – that is success.   

I am good at networking and bringing people together. (Not matchmaking – but knowing who can help who. I’m terrible at matchmaking.)  

            The object of this skill is about helping people. The challenges this creates for me is really just that my help is accepted. I try to build bridges between people so they can connect and work together. The context I use this creative skill is mostly at work – but it’s beneficial in my life in general as well. I define success when I have put people together in a mutually beneficial way and they are able to work through their problems together.

2) Do the same for all of the creative skills you would like to have but feel you are lacking.

I wish I was able to be more strategic in my career.

            The object of this skill would be about seeing opportunities for development and promotion. The challenges this would create for me are that I don’t think I’m ready for the next level of my job but I wish I was. I’m not confident that I know enough to be successful. The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am promoted and jump into the next level of this role with confidence.  

I wish I could stop editing myself – stop holding back my ideas

            The object of this skill would be about being more confident in my ideas and what I have to offer. I tend to edit myself when I’m in a room of peers – not as much as I used to, with age comes (sometimes poorly timed) wisdom! The challenges this would create for me are my lack of self-confidence. I don’t know that my experience or knowledge of my role are sufficient enough to allow my ideas to be relevant.  The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am confident that I would be making a meaningful contribution.

I wish I was more disciplined.

            The object of this skill would be about just what it sounds like – being more disciplined. I procrastinate and worry about things so long that when I actually get to doing the thing I’ve been procrastinating and worrying about, I’m in a super time crunch. I like to think that I work best under pressure but I don’t think I’ve really given myself any other option. The challenges this would create for me are that I have no respect for my own authority! I have the best intentions and plans but when I don’t follow through on those plans – there are no repercussions. (Except the whole last minute thing.) The context I would use this creative skill is in every aspect of my life. I would define success when I am able to set a schedule for myself and respect myself enough to follow through. I think big things could happen for me if I just applied myself more. (Oh my gosh, I just sounded exactly like my parents all through high school. Wow. I get it now! Ha!)   

I wish I could pick up abstract ideas faster

            The object of this skill would be about learning my job faster. I always feel like it takes me so much longer to understand some of the processes and tasks that I’m asked to do. The challenges this would create for me are that I need to understand why I’m doing something in order for me to understand how to do it. I worked with a guy once who said, “Tell me how to score points and I’ll tell you how I’m going to play the game.” I don’t understand how to score the points all the time. I ask for the help but I wish I could just pick these things up faster. The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am able to learn new processes faster and more completely.

I wish I was a better public speaker

            The object of this skill would be about effective communication again. I’m not terrible at public speaking but I wish I was better. The challenges this would create for me are not huge but they would be having the practice and opportunity to try. The context I would use this creative skill is at work. I would define success when I am more natural at public speaking.   

References:

Canfield. J. & Smith, G. (2011). Imagine: Ideation skills for improvement and innovation today. Holland, MI: Black Lake Press.

McKeown, M. (2014). The innovation book: How to manage ideas and execution for outstanding results. Edinburgh Gate, Harlow, United Kingdom. Pearson Education Limited.

A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

In this video, Prof. Baba Shiv of Stanford University speaks to the importance of emotion in decision making, particularly as related to confidence. After watching this video, reflect on two situations; one, in which you were extremely confident of the outcome and what your attitude was towards the subject; and second, a situation in which you were less confident or not so confident of the outcome. Based on this module's readings and this video write a reflection blog detailing the situations above and describing the role emotion played in decision making. Include what emotional reactions you experienced for each scenario.

I am not a confident person. I second guess myself at every turn. I’m not unexperienced or incapable, I’m just not confident. This stems from times when I was overly confident, “John Wayne-ed” something and it blew up in my face. I should not just “wing it” – that rarely works out well. So, I’ve had trouble navigating between completely self-confident to the point of arrogance and just not wanting to say anything for fear that I’m wrong – that I don’t have the data or experience and just stay quiet. This has been a problem in my career at Boeing because while I’ve been at this company almost 7 years – which is normally enough time to feel confident in most daily decisions at any other job – I’ve changed positions within Boeing almost yearly since 2013 so I always feel like the new kid. Like I don’t have over 40 years of life experience or nearly 30 years of work experience – at least 15 years of actual supply chain experience. I act like I just walked in off the street and like I don’t have any authority at all to make any bigger decision than what I’m having for lunch. This is probably not really what you want this reflection assignment to be about but it is what this week’s lesson on emotion in decision making – confidence – has made me reflect on.

The last time I felt completely confident about a job was when I was the vendor managed inventory coordinator for an electrical equipment company and it ended with the whole “world series of warehouse baseball” situation that I’ve written about before – the job where I felt like I was untouchable and my decisions as a leader were infallible. I was so very very wrong and the fallout from that experience still haunts me almost 11 years later. My attitude toward my position and the confidence I had then was misplaced. I was young and had no leadership experience except that of the leaders I followed. Most of them were old school bosses who knew how to bark but not how to lead. I thought I needed to bark too and barking got results and these results built up my confidence. Until it didn’t. Today, I have small bouts of confidence that happen when I am completely sure about the data and I don’t bark about things. I ask questions and I listen. When I do have those moments of clarity and confidence, I feel good about things. Last year I was in charge of scheduling the work for b-deck on the 787 build. This area is where the water tanks are stored in the belly of the airplane and there are many tubes and connections that have to be made between potable water systems and then again many connections with the waste water systems. Because that part of the build was highly susceptible to customer choices, the build plan varied weekly. When leadership wanted to try and lean out our build process, they started to look at what they called bar chart (schedule) effectivity. The numbers needed to be above 85% and mine were sometimes 44% and sometimes 98% - it just depended on what jet we were building and for whom we were building it. Leadership saw one of my bar chart schedules and it was at 38% effectivity. They immediately wanted to cut my team from 14 to 7. And in normal circumstances, I can understand why – the numbers on that one build showed that we didn’t need all of those people. But I had to explain to them that my build was unique and that the effectivity changed every week. If they took half my team, they would be setting them up for failure when we had another big complex build. I gathered all of my averages, my examples and was fairly confident that I was doing the right thing. I engaged with my build team and asked the mechanics for data to help build my case to keep as many of the team together as possible. No one would be losing their jobs regardless but the team would have been severed in half. We fought the good fight with leadership all the way up to the director of the program. I explained the situation over and over again and became very confident in the data and what was needed to be successful. It wasn’t a popular fight – I was often at odds with my own lead and manager but I believed that what I was doing was right. In the end, we lost three people to other teams but we kept most of the core people on the team together. I didn’t feel confident in myself but I knew that the issue was important and meaningful enough to act more confident than I felt – but not arrogant. It takes me longer now – to gain confidence with things like that. I don’t trust myself when I feel overly confident – it makes me check myself and double check. Like when you leave the house and check a couple of times to make sure you didn’t forget anything. That’s the relationship I have with confidence in making decisions at work. I have to keep checking my pockets to make sure I have everything I need for the day.

References:

Shiv, B (2011). Brain research at Stanford: Decision making. Retrieved from:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRKfl4owWKc

A632.8.3.RB - Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

A632.8.3.RB - Reflections on the Cynefin Framework

Create a reflection blog based on critically thinking about how the Cynefin Framework can benefit your decision-making. Consider the chart on page 7 of the HBR article A Leader's Framework for Decision Making and discuss decision-making in multiple contexts; include two specific examples of decisions in multiple contexts that you have made. Detail the considerations from the various contexts that influenced your decision.  Critically assess the Cynefin Framework and describe 5 ways it can provide an improved context for decision making.

Last year, I had the responsibility of scheduling the build for the horizontal stabilizer (hstab) of the new 787-10. We had many meetings where we discussed the applications of the test flight equipment and how they would be installing in the aft section of the new jet. We had to make decisions in multiple contexts because we had to build the hstab as well as include the test flight team so coordinating those two aspects was important. Each team came with its own set of priorities and complexities. The sequencing of each operation in the build had to be strategic to both teams. I know nothing about building an airplane, I’ve never physically built an airplane outside of the snap together 1:200 models I have all over my cubicle (and my co-worker’s cubicles). I had to rely on the mechanics and the test flight mechanics to tell me what they needed and how their work could be laid out intelligently. Not only did we have to get this done fairly quickly, but I needed to be able to explain the schedule to leadership so I needed to understand the build. I brought together the team leaders and the lead mechanics to open up the discussion. One of the things I encouraged was some dissent. I think that a good discussion has an open forum for questions and some dissent – otherwise it’s just a lecture. I still couldn’t build an airplane but I could speak intelligently to some of the issues we encountered and why we made the decisions we did to resolve the issues. Dissent and formal debate are valuable communication assets in complex contexts because they encourage the emergence of well-forged patterns and ideas. A “ritual dissent” approach, for instance, puts parallel teams to work on the same problem in a large group meeting environment.

(Boone & Snowden, 2015)

The Cynefin Framework can provide an improved context for decision making five ways: Simple and complicated contexts assume an ordered universe, where cause-and-effect relationships are perceptible, and right answers can be determined based on the facts. (Boone & Snowden, 2015) In an average week, we can assume that we will have to eat, we will have to sleep, and we will probably have to put gas in our cars. When our stomachs growl and we start feeling “hangry” we know that we should stop and eat something, when we get grumpy and foggy we know that we should take a nap or go to bed (Even if the Grey’s Anatomy episode ended on a cliff-hanger.). When the little low-fuel indicator light goes off in the car we know that we should fill the tank soon. We can make good decisions based on facts and the cause-and-effect relationship is easily readable.  

Complex and chaotic contexts are unordered—there is no immediately apparent relationship between cause and effect, and the way forward is determined based on emerging patterns. The ordered world is the world of fact-based management; the unordered world represents pattern-based management. (Boone & Snowden, 2015) I recently started having weird pains in my arms. It didn’t seem work related and it didn’t seem related to anything physical I was doing either. It was a deep ache in my forearms and it would come and go without any understandable pattern. I finally went to the doctor because it was starting to worry me. It became all encompassing. My doctor asked me questions about my personal life and about work and I couldn’t understand how those things would have anything to do with my arms hurting. She finally told me that I was experiencing the effects of stress. She said that I mentioned heart flutters and migraines which combined with what I had told her about work and school and my arms hurting all pointed to stress. I had an EKG run on my heart and it was fine, blood tests came out fine too. It was just me not handling the stresses going on around me well. In the weeks following this determination, I’ve been able to make better decisions about taking breaks and eating better. I stop to take deep breaths when I feel myself getting stressed out and try to handle one thing at a time (I’m not a great multitask-er – that’s an important thing to know about yourself!). I able to see the patterns of my pain and what I’m doing and am able to offset it with relaxation techniques and medication.

The very nature of the fifth context—disorder—makes it particularly difficult to recognize when one is in it. Here, multiple perspectives jostle for prominence, factional leaders argue with one another, and cacophony rules. The way out of this realm is to break down the situation into constituent parts and assign each to one of the other four realms. (Boone & Snowden, 2015) I feel like I exist in the fifth context all the time. But understanding the disorder and how it impacts us and our decision making helps us work through it better. The best example I can think of right this moment is how I feel when I have hundreds of reschedules (time consuming but easy data entry work) and six people are instant messaging me about this part being damaged, and where is their report, and do I know when I’ll get to the grief records, and could I come to a meeting about the root cause analysis of something or another and my email won’t stop pinging and I just sit there watching all of this happen while wishing I could just shut down my computer and go hide in a dark conference room for the rest of the day. It’s chaotic and stressful and I hate it. So, I usually start with the immediate concerns. I respond to emails that aren’t emergent and flag them for later, answer the instant messages the best I can, and start working one chunk of reschedules at a time. I slowly maneuver through the tasks the best I can. (I usually get up and “do a lap” around the cubicles to gather my thoughts. I know now that doing that is assigning the individual parts of my chaos into each of the four quadrants of the Cynefin Framework and working them in order of importance and complexity.

References:

Boone, D., & J. Snowden, M. (2015, December 07). A Leaders Framework for Decision Making. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making