Communication

During class this week we did a few communication based activities. The first was a obstacle course in which we had to go through with a partner. It was quite challenging since one partner was blindfolded and the other couldn’t touch or lead the other through. This made me really have to think about what I was saying. What might seem clear to one person might to another that is lacking something the first person possess. In this case it was sight. Some directions I gave and received were too vague while other times they were too specific to be able to execute.  “Move a little forward” or “Turn 30 degrees to the left”. Both are fairly relative and need a point of reference that, without sight, were hard to accomplish. For next year I’ll really have to work on trying to see a problem through other people’s eyes and forget what might be common sense to me since that might not be the case with students fresh to Iowa State.

The second activity was probably the most challenging. We had to flip a blanket over while everyone kept both feet on it. I’ve never done this activity before so I really relied on critical thinking and the prior knowledge of other mentors in the group. I think this was a great activity for critical thinking along with communication. For the most of the challenge the entire puzzle wasn’t clear since you can’t see what people are doing on the other side with everyone packed in tight. We had to rely on what people said to know what was going on along with when and how to act to accomplish this goal.

The third activity was really insightful into how different people perceive and are able to relay a message on. We started with writing a word and passed that to the next person who was to draw what was written. Then when it was passed again it was to be drawn again. This was difficult since not everyone is a great artist but its kind of a metaphor for communication levels. Not everyone can get his or her point across affectively and sometimes it is a guessing game. What might have started out as a simple phrase such as “princess castle” can morph through others perceptions and interpretations into “filming a movie”. 

ISLE Workshop

"Two ways to get wisdom in the world: Mistakes and Mentors." – Delatorro McNeal

The Iowa State Leadership Experience yesterday was a really great opportunity for me to really grow. The keynote Delatorro McNeal had a really unique approach to leadership and had a lot of energy and passion. I really appreciated his enthusiasm and it helped not only me but also the whole group of attendees set their mood for the entire workshop.

The first breakout session I attended was Positive Conflict. Michelle Boettcher from the Judicial Department at ISU gave us a lot of information. She first had us figure out our own personal conflict style. This buys into one of the important qualities of a Peer Mentor, insight. Before this session I never really thought about the fact that, just like MBTI, there are distinct groups of attributes when approaching conflict. I found out that I was “Avoidant” which I would say is partially true. For the most part I try to avoid conflict but when it does come up I usually try to facilitate a win-win situation with compromise as my main tool. I had pretty even scores across four out of the five styles, with “Competing” being a distant fit for me. I would never say that I want to win every conflict or disagreement. This session was useful to being able to understand others and how I can help solve problems and differences of opinion if it comes up next year for my students.

The second session I attended was Diversifying Your Leadership Style. I was a little disappointed by this session since I was expecting Cameron and Aja to present more information on how to go about diversifying your style but it was mostly a quick presentation of the categories from Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership and then a group activity where we are given a situation and just have to figure out what we would do. I received a situation about a Halloween Dance and people had shown up wearing inappropriate costumes. We came up with politely asking them to change costumes or leave and then anticipating this complication if the event would be hosted again. It was a little ironic since I had faced a similar situation for my residence hall’s Masquerade Dance the previous year and the same event was being hosted last night for the second time and I had made plan on how to handle situations we had faced the year before.

Overall, ISLE was good and I hope to attend again next year!