Office retreat – coming up with a vision

Apart from coming up with a vision statement, our focus as an office was also to discuss “How to stay aligned as a team?”. This was an activity that was conducted by splitting the office into several groups. Each group was assigned to come up with ideas on how we could be more aligned as an office. We then pitched our ideas to the office. Here are some snippets on what our team put forth:

  • Know each team’s challenges – is there anything we can do to pitch in and help?
  • Get together monthly or periodically for brown bag lunches/lunch & learn sessions/happy hours.
  • Carve out time during the all-staff meetings to talk about a particular topic.
  • Attend the forum luncheon series as a group.
  • Get some speakers every so often to the office.

In the process of creating a vision statement, we went thru a step-by-step process of arriving at the result. We were first asked to write down what we each thought our individual contributions to OPA/Penn State were, then it bubbled up to the team and the office as a whole. With each iteration, the small groups merged coming up with their unified vision, and identifying common themes. Until it was a big group and we all looked back at the running theme of what we thought our vision looked like.

What I really liked about the whole activity was it required engagement from everyone; everyone had a voice in coming up with a vision statement for OPA for “One PennState: 2025.”

Office retreat – working well together

Our office had a retreat today at The Nature’s Inn in Bald Eagle State Park. Our goal was to discuss our strengths (based on the Gallup Strength-Finder), as well as to come up with a vision statement that appropriately reflected our role in Penn State. Chris Heinz (a Gallup Strengths coach and from EnergyCap Inc.) was our coach for the morning session, and he conducted some really useful activities that offered us insights. Here’s some of what he spoke about:

Manage your weaknesses by:

  1. Getting a little better at important skills.
  2. Utilizing a support system (could be like a cheat sheet, writing on your palm, etc.).
  3. Using strengths to intervene; call on individualization/appreciate what skills someone may have.
  4. Find a strategic partner (maybe someone with Woo talent or other people talent; Woo = Winning Others Over).
  5. Stopping the behaviour.

Strengths journey:

  1. Name your talents.
  2. Claim them as your own.
  3. Frame the expectations (clear expectations is the only way to create engagement and increase productivity at the work place).
  4. Aim your talents and grow them into strengths.

In finding a partner to complement your strengths (or those that you are lacking), think of some of the best duos of all times – Peanut butter & Jelly, Lennon & McCartney, Tom & Jerry, Hamburger & fries. Get the idea…? Who would complement you the best?

 

For those interested, Chris also runs a blog.

Finding my strengths

For the first time in the last 20 years I have been at Penn State, I actually took not one, but two Strength Finders test. The first one was via the High5test (free) earlier in the year, and another one in October via the Gallup Strengths Finder  (paid for by my office).

I dug thru my notes for my earlier strengths profile and compared it to the Gallup strengths, and was fascinated to see the two were pretty much in sync. And then I compared the results of both of these with the feedback we had to gather from others in the Reflected Best-self Activity early on in PSEL. The running theme describing my strengths was spot on! Something to keep in mind, as we were told is, if you re-take the test in a short time span, the results are not very different. However, strengths over a period of time do tend to shift based on your responsibilities, or the fact that you have a chance to work on them.

For those of you curious, here are where my strengths lie according to High5test:

 

And here’re my Signature Themes from the gallup strength-finder:

Responsibility, Restorative, Strategic, Arranger, Input

 

 

Pitching my elevator speech

After I came up with what I thought was my ‘final’ elevator speech and memorizing it, my first thought was to find some unsuspecting soul and try it on them. An afternoon walk around the campus provided me with the perfect opportunity – an elderly couple (in their 70s) that had come to attend their reunion and were lost and needed help finding their building. I offered to walk them to the meeting spot, thinking I might as well spiel off my speech. They listened politely,, and the gentleman remarked about how things were so different back in the day, including the buildings. And that was that – somewhat of a fail! Back to the drawing board…

My next experience was at Best Buy where a sales associate that assisted me asked what I did for Penn State, and I thought quickly – elevator speech for the non-Penn Stater! This time, I hit the nail on the head, and he seemed impressed.

My next several experiences went back and forth between some of my audience truly impressed enough to ask follow-up questions, and some others give an appreciative nod.

I am, however, really glad to have been through this exercise of putting together an elevator speech (or versions of it). It has helped me recognize how what I do fits in with the University goal and mission.

Shadowing Dr. Lance Kennedy-Phillips, Vice Provost for Planning and Assessment

I had my shadowing experience spread out on several days, since Dr. Lance felt that would give me the most insight into his different leadership duties and responsibilities as Summer was typically a lean period as far as meetings go.

  1. The first time was when as part of my experience shadowing Dr. Lance Kennedy-Phillips, I got to attend the Academic Leadership Council to meet with the Koya Leadership partners that Penn State was working with to re-group on what steps needed to be done next. There were several leaders present from across the University – Dr. Barbara Dewey, Dr. Jean Younken, Dr. Susan Welch, Chuck White to name a few. Here are my summarized notes on the meeting, and this could be applicable to pretty much several positions, not just for HR, as was this case:
  • Strong communication with the Academic part of Penn state, allowing for robust discussion of issues.
  • Would like to be able to have discussions on policies in colleges and units relating to HR, and academic units would like to be consulted on HR policies.
  • Collaborative, informative and receptive to Academia, and someone who can follow HR guidelines, but also willing to be able to work around these guidelines.
  • Customer service-centric.
  • Someone who will bring a partner idea to reality, otherwise, deans have to keep spending too much time overriding HR regulations.
  • Rewriting for staff having expertise in immigration issues..
  • The person needs to have a heart.
  • The issue was more with HR central, not the satellite units.
  1. The second time was as an interview observer when Dr. Lance reached out to the candidate via Zoom and spoke about the opportunities the candidate could avail of while working in his unit at Penn State. I don’t really have too much to say on this except we decided to go with a different candidate based on the experience and presentation skills.
  2. The third meeting, exposure-wise, was the one that really got me hooked. It was with a group of people across the University coming together to discuss data, and everything data. In other words, the Data Governance. This is where my passion and work aligned, and it felt great to be able to be a part of this meeting. One of the benefits that came out of it was to be able to serve as a working member on one of the sub-groups (Data Governance Framework) that were formed. I hope to be able to write more about it in the future, but suffices to say that the group has been busy working on several scenarios developed from the pain points that were gathered from surveying several data consumers.

At the end of the shadowing experience, Dr. Lance was generous with his time in sitting down with me to answer some of my (now) standard leadership-based questions. Here are some of his key viewpoints:

On values or beliefs about balancing work and home life and how to integrate these into our corporate culture around the world:

Appropriate amount of work into development of staff, into the projects that are going on, infrastructure. Too much emphasis on one particular item isn’t good; balance it out.

  • How have you evolved as a leader in the last five years? What insights have you gained about your talents and strengths?

Making tough decisions is my biggest growth. Decisions about terminating employees.. Being comfortable with the grey. Figuring it out. Was surprised about how uncomfortable I was about ambiguity (side note: turns out I am too, to a certain extent).

  • What are the greatest lessons you’ve learned as a leader?

To trust people around you. Trust your gut. Don’t be afraid to take a chance. As a leader, you should make the environment comfortable enough to be okay failing.

Being aware of your limitations, and knowing who to call upon.

  • How do you recognize success?

Making progress towards a goal. Sometimes, it’s a matter of having an impact. Do I have people engaged in the process? Are we making progress?

  • What was your first recollection of experiencing great leadership?

First job after grad school in Nebraska. We were a team of 5, constantly arguing. Our supervisor had immense patience; allowed us twenty-somethings to have our opinions, gave us the space to grow.

  • What do you see as the primary role of the leader?

To make sure members of your team have the resources and tools they need to be successful, to keep team on track. Be flexible. Leaders have to be comfortable with the grey.

  • What is the best and worst example of leadership that you have seen lately?

Worst – folks that follow the KITA approach to leadership. Someone that wants to manufacture emergency, heavy-handed approach.

Best – Nick Jones – letting people be heard. Doesn’t shut them down.

  • How do you approach complex problems?

Try not to express a quick decision. Make sure we reflect on it; throw an idea out to the team, get their input. Not just the data and political side of the side.

What’s the outcome/goal, and figure out how to get there?

· What is a decision you made that made you a leader?

Early on, Lance knew he wanted to be a leader. Knew he wanted to influence a process. Wanted to be involved on a positive impact.

  • How do you define leadership?  How would you describe your leadership style?

Servant leadership is very important to Lance. Not always about me, how can I meet the org meet their goals? Charismatic leadership… part of his style has the energy.

  • What does “motivation” mean to you?

It means you have passion for something. Make sure you enjoy the work you are doing; having a positive impact.

Leadership Through The Looking Glass