Ch. 7 "Conflict"

For this week, I will focus on Chapter 7 "Conflict." This is a very relevant topic for me personally with my administrative work within the ELA.

This is because the ELA has experienced a great deal of conflict over the last several years due to differing views on how we should conduct a curricular reform.

While the majority of the instructors supported a particular set of curricular reforms, a minority of senior instructors were against the reforms. Due to feelings of not feeling respected, of accusations that have been made against them, and due to a considerable amount of "groupness" (a sense of "us" vs. "them" that has magnified the importance of the issues), this group has had great difficulty accepting the reform.

So, what can I "take away" from this chapter on Shackleton?

First, we should have "Deal[t] with Anger in Small Doses" better than we did. Legitimate concerns were expressed by the dissenting group early on that were not addressed. Efforts should have been made to have had extensive discussion and debate over these concerns, and perhaps some compromises needed to have been made. Better yet, we needed more of a conflict positive environment in which open discussion might have led to some "win-win" negotiations. Instead, the minority group felt marginalized and disenfranchised which subsequently led to feelings of intense frustration and ultimately aggression.

Secondly, we needed to have "Engage[d] Dissidents." The reform dissidents were essentially ignored. What we needed to have done is brought the dissenting voices and members "into the tent." I have always loved this notion from Shackleton, that he took the members that might pose the greatest threat to his leadership and made them members of his tent. This way he could consult with them and keep them feeling listened to and wanted, and prevent them from joining forces with others. There is an expression in English, "Keep your enemies closer and your enemies closer" which is attributed to the great Chinese military commander Sun Tsu which expresses a similar concept. We needed to have done something like this by better including our dissidents in the reform process so that they could have more of a say and be part of the reform. Not doing so has led to a lot of problems.

My efforts over the last couple of years have been to try and make up for the past. Giving the opposition an opportunity to express themselves has been one approach. We have had several open meetings in which opposition views could be presented and discussed. More recently, opposing members have been given roles in which they could contribute in ways in which they were uniquely suited. These efforts have been at least partially successful, and much of the division and distrust and anger of the past appear to be lessening.

On Rank

Last week's Chapter 5 and this week's chapter 6 are both "team" focused chapters.

There is much in these chapters that resonates with me and applies to my workplace, the ELA.

The ELA is a fairly big team, with a great deal of diversity. We have native and non-native speakers of English. We have Japanese instructors, and non-Japanese. We have among the non-Japanese a wide range of nationalities: British, Australian, Scottish, Finnish, and many Americans. We are divided by contract status: some instructors are on short-term contracts, others longer, and some on permanent contracts. We are also differentiated by gender.

While, for the most part, we do a wonderful job of working together to create a great program for all of you, the differences between us,  especially "rank" differences, cause a lot of subtle problems. I say subtle because in general, we are very equality focused. We all teach the same courses, teach the same amount as one another, share in all the non-teaching responsibilities that come with a program like this, and we each have a vote in decision making. It would seem that we are equal.

In reality, however, there are differences. Someone with a permanent contract can, in many ways, do as they like. They can speak up at meetings, choose to be against the directors, not show up at a retreat, etc. Someone for whom English is their native language has an advantage over a non-native speaker when debating issues. Someone from a more debate-oriented culture (e.g. British) has an advantage over someone from a harmony-focused culture (e.g. Japanese). Males, in general, have advantages over females. Those who go home to a family have advantages over those who go home to an apartment alone. People who drink alcohol and socialize after work with others have advantages over those who do not. Etc.

In psychology these differences are known as "rank." And what you need to know about rank is that those in a lower rank are much more aware of and sensitive to rank differences than those in a higher rank. So... the take-away point that I want you to remember is to be very sensitive and considerate of rank differences, especially those of lower rank than you. You will naturally be somewhat blind to these differences, but those below you will not be.

I work with several people in the ELA of similar rank to me, that have little or no sensitivity to the advantage that they have over others, and this causes a lot of unnecessary resentment. Don't let this be you.

What makes us happy?

Related to optimism and the need for gratifications in our life (which I will talk about on Wednesday), I found this on one of my executive coach friend's Facebook page about what makes us happy. It's just an article he found elsewhere, but it is a quick and easy read and provides a nice list of simple ways to be happier. See the article here and for those really without the time to check it out, the ten easy ways are these:

1. Exercise more
2. Sleep more
3. Shorten your commute
4. Spend time with friends and family
5. Go outside
6. Help others
7. Practice smiling
8. Plan a trip
9. Meditate
10. Practice gratitude

So ... not so hard. Most of those are easy to do.

I would like to add to the list this item: "Doing something that you love." For me at the moment this includes photography. This is something I have always had some interest in but over the last year or so I have gotten seriously back into it. Lately, in fact, I have started shooting film again, which is really fun as it makes you really think about what you are shooting because each shot costs money. But the quality of film is different from digital too, which I also really appreciate.

Response to Chapter 3, "Optimism and Reality"

For this week, given that I have already mentioned my thoughts on Chapter 2 in class yesterday, I will focus on Chapter Three, "Optimism and Reality." I am hoping that next Wednesday we will have a chance to focus on this chapter in class. 

My response: 

Chapter 3, “Optimism and Reality” is an important one as optimism was one of Shackleton’s most noted characteristics. In addition to “You’ve damn well got to be optimistic” quoted in the text, Shackleton also once said, “Optimism is true moral courage.”

This second quotation is one that for years I have carried around in my head and try to live by. The word “moral” in this quotation suggests we have an obligation to be optimistic for the sake of those around us. This is true for me—as a teacher to my students, as a colleague to my peers, as a father to my family, as a friend to my friends. We have to believe that what we are doing is leading to something good, and, of course, such an attitude helps ensure that positive things happen. Perkins quotes Henry Ford (a famous American industrialist who started Ford Motor Company and many modern manufacturing techniques such as the assembly line): “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right” (qtd. in Perkins 43). The idea here is that our attitude (optimistic or pessimistic) directly affects what actually will happen.

It is also said that optimists, on average, live approximately seven years longer than pessimists.

So being an optimist is fundamental to my approach to life.

But it takes “courage” to be optimistic, and sometimes I struggle to find this courage. There are times—in my marriage, in my work (there are a lot of politics in the ELA), in the direction my life is taking—in which I lose my sunny optimism and find myself instead in a very dark place. Getting myself from the dark place back to the light takes some work. One thing I tell myself is that bad times are always followed by good times, and being older I have plenty of experiences that have proven this true. Another thing that helps me is a quotation from Lance Armstrong, the once great but now deposed bicycle racer, “Turn every negative into a positive.” The idea here is that negative experiences have to be viewed as opportunities, specifically opportunities to learn—about why you might be in conflict with someone else, about what caused you to fail in some activity and what you can do to improve, about how not to repeat the same mistake, etc. Because of our text, I am also interested in Martin Seligman (cited in Perkins 43), who founded the field of “Positive psychology” and is an expert on helping people become happier. To see more about him, please check out his bio-sketch, related links, and video at TED. I am currently reading a book of his called Authentic Happiness, which I have found enormously enlightening.

So that is me, and I look forward to you sharing your thoughts on how to deal with difficult situations in your life.

Macklemore's "Ten Thousand Hours"

I spent some time in Seattle last summer where many of my friends were deep in the throes of "Macklemore Mania." If you don't know about Macklemore, he's a white, American, Seattle-based rap artist who is suddenly hitting the big time based in part on the sophistication of his lyric about topics not normally associated with rap e.g. "Thriftstore" which promotes buying used clothes for cheap rather than over-priced fashion, and "Same Love," an incredibly beautiful song which supports gay love and gay marriage (although he is not gay).

But the song that I wish to focus on here and which, in a way, relates to our class, is "Ten Thousand Hours." The term originally came from the idea that to be truly great at something, be it chess, or a sport, or a musical instrument, takes about ten years of dedicated practice. This adds up to about ten thousand hours, an idea that Malcolm Gladwell popularized in his book, Outliers.

For Macklemore, this is what  is what it took for him to finally succeed, and in the song he tells others that if you want to get good at something, you have to put in the work. As he sings it in relationship to great artists:

See, I observed Escher

I love Basquiat

I watched Keith Haring

You see I study art

The greats weren't great because at birth they could paint

The greats were great because they paint a lot

To see all the words along along with the soundtrack, click here.

For more on this topic, there is also what is known as Deliberate Practice, the notion that a great deal of the right kind of practice is required to be truly good at something.