Managing Oneself

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Bootstraps Take Center Stage

Strictly dichotomous thinking really irks me. I think the article is very mistaken and overly simplistic in its black and white categorization of people. Listener or reader, advisor or doer, knowledge worker or physical worker, the first half of your life versus the second half. The whole American-Dream-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps schpeal really irks me too. It functions as an opiate for the masses of people who will never be able to pull themselves up, who are bound by institutionalized inequalities to their plight. Instead of getting angry and working to change the system, they internalize the bitterness and blame their lack of work ethic and/or bad luck and/or inadequacies which may, in fact, be part of the problem but it is not the whole of it. Then you have those people - your best friend’s uncle or that guy in the NPR show or my grandmother - who find success against all odds. They are the exception not the rule. It is classist to assume otherwise.

I admit, that sounded melodramatic.

I like the drama. That’s a little something about me. I love the rush of being on a stage, a live audience, the spittle the breath the pressure. The little improvisations that are made. Momentary genius. I like to dance and I don’t want to compartmentalize my passions into halves. I’d rather integrate them, which the article ultimately argues while occasionally contradicting this point. Here’s a few things that I love about dance: the opportunity to critique society/America/bootstraps through art, to work with people, to improvise, to meet gay men. For the first week my internship did not give me opportunities to do this. My work was straightforward with very little room to think critically and even less to improvise. I worked alone. There were no gay men, the other intern is straight and talks incessantly about rock climbing. But things may be looking up - this Wednesday the other intern and I got a project. A project where we can actually take initiative, think critically, work together and collaborate with other colleagues. Still no gay men but I may be able to through in some improvisational dance…

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With Great Opportunity Comes Great Responsibility

After working at the hospital for a couple weeks, I have come to realize a few things about myself—good and bad. One flaw that prevails throughout my life is my tendency to wait for opportune situations. Though sometimes, these magical moments do appear, more often than not, they arise from initiative. I waited two weeks to ask my mentor if I could observe surgeries that suited my interests, when I should have asked on the first day. Another flaw has shown itself to foil one of my strengths: I enjoy talking to people individually and in small groups, but when speaking in to large crowds, stage fright grips my body, causing it to quiver. When I talk to a small number of people, I work more effectively. I am able to better articulate myself by changing my approach based on feedback. On the other hand, my desire to talk to large crowds is almost non-existent. However, I believe, as Drucker mentions, that I should “remedy [my] bad habits.” This past week, I spoke in front of a large crowd of volunteers at the hospital, hoping to move them with my inspirational words. To curb my fears, I did my best to prepare myself for the event, practicing my speech the night before. Though I strive to better my weaknesses, I prefer to play to my strengths. Specifically for this summer, I know I help more at less-technical meetings. Thus, I have taken to choosing meetings with departments such as patient advocacy/quality improvement.

I am a listener. I am better when I ask many questions. However, my mentor is very busy, and my questions can be more trouble to him than it is worth. My mentor assigned me a task to determine quality metrics for stents during angioplasty. One of the challenges in my internship is providing quality work without expertise in the field of medicine. After given the assignment, I was torn. I knew close to nothing about angioplasty procedures, and my mentor was the obvious person to ask about it, but I was given the task because he himself was pre-occupied. I wanted to be a contributing member of his team, so I needed to become less dependent on him. By asking him to give me a crash course on the subject, I would have burdened him. Instead, I found a compromise to compensate for my preferred style of learning: asking smarter questions. Using Google Scholar and Wikipedia, I read and learned what I could. With the information gleaned from self-learning, I asked my mentor to help me learn the subject better.

Like Churchill, I learn via writing. For me, the pen is mightier than the sword. From day one, I have always carried a pen and notebook on my person. When I hear something in a meeting that strikes my attention, I write it down. This summer, this habit will help me succeed. Though I do not have extensive experience, I am willing to learn.

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Managing Oneself

This year, I had my fair share of “what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-freak-outs” where I tried frantically to attach meaning to my actions, my relationships… my life. I know that I sound melodramatic but sometimes I feel like I can’t seem to figure anything out! But with time, these freak-outs have decreased both in intensity and frequency as I have come to realize that my issues are not really due to the fact that I don’t know what I am doing, but rather, it’s that I do not know myself.

Even with Drucker’s article to guide me, I had difficulty placing myself into some of the categories that were mentioned. Before coming to DC, I was in Ecuador leading a trip, and based off of my actions there I would have undoubtedly categorized myself as a listener. I liked to, and was good at, answering my group’s questions in a free-for-all fashion and preferred to go into the meetings I was leading with just a general feeling and idea in place, as opposed to well-written notes.

Yet here in DC, I never go into a meeting without a game plan.  I have suddenly turned into a very type-A person where my notes are in perfect place and my words are spelled out for me. I never thought that I was in any kind of way a “D” (in the DISC sorter) or “gold” in the leadership colors, yet here I am! A strangely organized and super-prepared Jacinta who likes to cross things off the daily to-do list, and who delegates tasks to the other interns. Weird.

The good news is, however, that I can confidently say that I learn and work best with others. I like to bounce ideas off everyone in the room, and I like to hear what people are thinking—especially when their opinion is different from my own.  I do my best work in a group setting, though I recognize that I sometimes need to take some alone-time when it comes to powering through long, more detailed assignments.

My challenges lie in figuring out the “Where do I belong” and the “What should I contribute” portions in the article. I find myself constantly re-thinking the things that I thought I knew about myself now that I am in this very different setting and discovering personality traits that I never thought I had. I know that I value making a life out of serving others, but until I better understand my own skills and abilities to make that contribution, I have to accept that I cannot realistically have my entire life figured out just yet.

I think that this summer I am going to succeed thanks to my approachability and communication skills. In the office, I am never afraid to ask for feedback and am constantly looking ways to learn from the people around me. I thrive off of the company and ideas of others, and with their help, I am hopeful that I will learn a bit more about myself.

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Managing Oneself

I won’t pretend like I have myself figured out, because I don’t - I’m still searching. To some extent, I disagree with Drucker’s insistence on ignoring skills that one does not have natural strengths in. For instance, I am not a natural speaker to large audiences. But over time, after many seminars in group communication and presentations, I feel like it is one of the most useful skills I have developed. It has come in handy at Rice, as well as during this internship. Dr. Scher is a busy man, and my ability to relate my work, concisely and understandably, is definitely a strength that helps both my mentor and me. In other words, I agree with an adapted form of Drucker’s principle: to focus on your strengths and passions, but patching up weaknesses will give you an edge to help you succeed. 

Reading makes me tired. Textbooks have never been my thing, and perhaps it’s because I’m a more interactive, visual kind of learner. I learn by doing, and tend to prepare for situations by practice - running through them in my head. It’s already become quite obvious to me that I internalize things by writing. I never need to look over notes afterwards. In this way, I learn quickly, which has helped me come up to speed with prostate cancer at Sloan-Kettering, but some aspects of myself make my internship challenging, as most everything in science and medicine is written - in the form of journal articles. I’ve found the remedy – if I take notes while reading, it helps me stay awake (coffee helps too), as well as internalizing the most important parts of the readings.

I really value sincerity and straight-forwardness in others, it makes working with others so much easier! Because I’m an efficiency-freak, I thrive in small groups, a trait that has played well so far in my internship. Although I enjoy cooperating with others, I am most productive when alone. These are not mutually exclusive – at Sloan-Kettering, I often head to the library for some alone time to finish work. However, my work contributes to Dr. Scher’s and Dr. Tempst’s projects.

I don’t mind directness – I pride myself on my ability to see the point, the big picture.  This is a skill that will take a little practice, to build intuition of what’s important, especially in the field of prostate cancer. Dr. Scher, the other day, related an intriguing point: “99% of the journal articles out there in medicine today are useless. They’re full of statistically significant results, but have no clinical meaning. Just because you are significantly more likely to have higher-grade cancer, absolutely doesn’t matter. We’re still going to fix you!” I’ve come up with a new goal for this summer – to develop a clinical “sense” as a bioengineer, or as Dr. Scher puts it: to become a bioengineer who understand clinical needs – driven not from the lab, but from the direction of the patient

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Managing Oneself

I am good at reading people and identifying products they seek, whether it be conversational, professional, or personal. I can understand what another person wants and deliver a solution or answer that works best for their needs. However, I only am able to do this when I have adequate face time with someone to understand them as a person. It allows me to determine how they think and operate so I can give them the resources to help them better succeed.  I thrive in environments with some type of structure implemented for me to work with. I can operate under ambiguity, but I like delivering tailored assignments because I can efficiently work within that space and know that I am producing expected results. Pressure behind me motivates me to perform at my peak because situations like that provide me with incentive. Ethically, I want to be a part of an organization I can be proud of in terms of what goods and services are being produced. I want my workplace to be conscious of society welfare in addition to paying necessary attention to self interest. Also the I want my organizations to associate themselves and conduct business with individuals who have high ethical standards. I believe the best work takes into account those people who you are trying to provide a service for and places it into righteous perspective. I also know that I belong in a work environment that is dynamic and always changing. I get bored quickly with monotonous tasks and enjoy activities with different people and diverse goals. I imagine that I can make my greatest contributions through my interactions with people. My ability to develop relationships and work with people to make further progress within my organization will help take projects above and beyond what is expected. I am excited to start developing these relationships at my SME placement here in San Francisco and put myself in the most conducive working environment possible. Some challenges I know I will face in this placement are going to be determining where I can add value and finding structure in the tasks I am assigned. My mentor, Craig Muir, is a biotechnology figurehead and is involved in dozens of projects currently. Working with him to find out where he requires help is a task that won’t be easy but will get done. I will thrive this summer by being more ambitious and taking the initiative to ask for bigger roles and assignments to help the organization. My boss is receptive to all of my suggestions thus far and I plan to keep the ball rolling.

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Managing myself

Even though it is common sense that in order to do your best work you must know who you are, few people spend time considering this when choosing their work environments- I know I haven’t.

Although I feel like I should know my strengths if I want to be an effective leader, at this point in time I cannot pin mine down. Until the SME my idea of leadership was that there were certain things you must excel at to be a leader, and those who wanted to be leaders must try to develop those. However, now having the view that you make your leadership what it is by being who you are, I want to discover my personal strengths so I can own my SME. I know that I can use my steady personality to my advantage to relieve tension in high stress situations and that my flexibility is an advantage in fluctuating circumstances. However, I’ll be challenged to discover what strengths I can employ here in a situation that is already very chill and has very little structure.

 I know that I am a reader and a writer; even as I read and digested the article, I was taking notes. However, much of the information I will gather in my placement will be through talking to people and watching, so I must learn how to utilize my style in this setting. I believe work best as an adviser and not a decision maker. That was a bit frustrating at first glance because when you think of a good leader you think of the innovative decision makers. But I am good at considering all the options, looking at the pros and cons, and helping someone choose the best option, and I’ve realized this can be just as important as the act of decision making itself. Here, I will be basically left to make my own decisions based on what I want to achieve- a huge challenge!

            I don’t think I can write out what my values are because I haven’t ever fully defined them. However, I know that I value people and integrity over most other things, and because that seems to resonate with the values of the hospital I consider it an appropriate working environment for me, and will look for situations where our values clash.

Despite the challenges I’ve named, I will thrive this summer because I persevere and see projects through to the finish line. As I learn more about what makes me more efficient, I will try to put that to use because I care about giving back to the people who are taking time to help me learn. And I will thrive because I know I have the determination to exceed my expectations, even when I don’t have a complete game plan for how to do it. 

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Setting myself up for success

What I have realized from reading this article is how little I know about myself. I made a list of all the questions that were asked and tried to answer each, and I found that there were several I didn’t know the answers to, or if I did, it took a lot of thought to get to the answer. Some on the other hand were more apparent to me. For example, I have always known that I learned more by doing and writing things down than any other method, and I believe myself to be more of a listened than a reader. I know I work well under stress and when it comes to producing results, I often assume the decision-making role. However, when it comes to describing my strengths or values or what I should contribute, I struggle.

            It seems that people perform through their strengths and make decisions based on their values but do so subconsciously. We rarely complete a task and think back to the particular strength or value that made it so successful, but it is making those associations that will bring light to what we should contribute to other projects. I believe I am a task-oriented person and a strength of mine is understanding the scope of a long term project and having the ability to break it down into tangible milestones. I can then devise a strategy to execute the plan that will be most time and resource effective. I think this will be very useful over the course of my internship. Because we are given a lot of freedom, I will be able to take the project that is given to me and create my own tasks within the project and a time oriented plan that will help me effectively complete them to successfully complete the project.

            On the other hand, I believe I perform at my best in teams where each one of us has similar values and work ethics. These teams are a great source of advice and creativity for ways to approach a particular problem or situation. It has been expressed to us that our mentor would like each of us to have our own project. Although I also like working individually on different projects, I am not performing at my best when I do which may cause a challenge over the course of the summer. I know that I will need to create that environment in which I am performing at my best and seek advice from those around me even if they aren’t necessarily working on the same project as I am, and in turn can help them create the environment in which they strive. 

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Who Am I

I am a listener. I am adaptive. I am someone who in the face of challenges and tense, stressful situations keeps a level head and can still ask questions like “what is really the best way to do something?” One of my (many) biggest problems, especially working in a school like Sharpstown, is that I still don’t know my surroundings or, more importantly, the kids. If there’s a fight between two gangs across the street, would I as an administrator kick them out? Suspend them? Make them work at the school and do community service as a way to “buy back” their mistakes? Would I ignore it as long as it was outside the grounds of my school? Thankfully, I’m not the one making the decisions; I’m watching. And I’m learning as I ask the deans at the school why they do things the way they do.

The suggestion to write down what you expect the outcome of something to be and coming back to revisit your prediction months or years down the road sounds like a great idea. As a teacher, I may not have to wait months at a time to see whether what I am doing is effective; I’ll be able to see whether or not it helps my kids and whether or not they understand it. But as a school administrator who is responsible for so much more then a classroom, revisiting my assumptions about how things will turn out will be an exercise I can learn a huge amount from. Education is a people focused endeavor; we don’t have a product we sell. We aren’t a replaceable or disposable sector. That is exactly what I want to work in, and so in that way I have the alignment between my values and desires and those of the culture I work in that Drucker argued is essential to success. But it seems to me that his suggestion that people chose their work to align the values of the company or industry to their own is not necessary for success. It is unarguably necessary for personal happiness and personal satisfaction, but humans have an extraordinary ability to think they can squeeze themselves into holes of whatever size they chose. 

I am using this summer to learn about education, about teaching, about running schools. I am making a dedicated effort to take as much as I can by always observing. By always listening and actively learning, which are things that I will want to keep doing once I move into the classroom. Becoming defensive of where you are and what you are doing is a recipe for alienating yourself and getting stuck. I am going to avoid that this summer. That is my goal. 

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Strengths Based Leadership

It is a strange coincidence that our topic of discussion this week is strength based leadership because this is a topic that I discussed with my mentor at some length this week. It turns out Goran is an adamant supporter of emphasizing our own individual strengths rather than trying to improve our weaknesses. He told me that for most organizations, an employee’s performance review was a discussion of “areas of improvement,” which is simply a euphemism for weaknesses, but these businesses do very little to foster the development of their employee’s strengths. This neglect is a hindrance to the company as a whole as well as the individual because our capacity for growth is so much greater in an area where we already have natural talent. At the end of our discussion he gave me a book titled Strengths Based Leadership 2.0, which describes the results of a Gallup study that identified the 34 most common strengths of humans beings. This survey encompassed millions of people and included several thousand more interviews of established leaders. In addition, this book came with a strengths finder test that would identify your top five strengths from the list of 34 and offer advice on how to use those strengths to your advantage in the workplace. I intend to take this test sometime in the next week or so.

After my talk with Goran and reading this article though, I have begun to realize that it is truly our own responsibility to manage ourselves, because many organizations do not have the resources in place to guide us. I’ve never thought about whether I am a reader or a listener and when the article first mentioned it, my first thought what that I was both. The more I read and reflected, however, I realized that I’m really not much of a listener, but a very strong reader. My first instinct has always been to read something. When I stumble upon something I don’t know my reaction is always to grab a textbook or hit up Google to see what there is to read about it. Despite this, however, I learn through doing. I can typically make sense of something by reading about it, but true understanding comes to me by getting my hands dirty and seeing everything work with my own eyes.

 Fortunately, Goran’s approach to management has resulted in an environment that will help me identify my strengths and foster their development over the summer. Already Goran and my supervisor, who I work with on a more regular basis, explicitly told me their strengths and I attempted to respond with my own, but to be honest I’m still trying to identify most of them. With these thoughts in mind it is my intention to open myself up to opportunities this summer at Champion where I can play to my strengths so that I can be an asset to the company as well as grow individually. 

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Managing Myself

One of my goals for the summer is to learn more about my strengths, interests, goals, and values. However, Peter Drucker’s article showed me how important it is to also learn about myself in the context of the life that surrounds me and to change when we see my world change. There is a lot that I know about myself, but I am learning how it fits into EasyBib.com and will help me thrive this summer. I am learning how to leverage my strengths to fit more perfectly than I would if I did everything that was asked of me. For example, I can find and analyze data very quickly, so I back up my work at EasyBib with extra research, regardless of whether my mentors ask me to do further research.

I value the friendly atmosphere at EasyBib and have learned more about my work habits. Like me, everyone here gets a boost of energy from being around friendly people and being able to have a casual conversation when they need a break from work. I prefer having conversations with my mentors so I can better explain my work. I know that if I do something once, like making how-to videos, I will remember how to do it; memorizing instructions is not enough. Although I perform well under stress, I prefer starting projects early, working efficiently, and using left-over time to refine my work. I can identify with the other people working at EasyBib because I value achievement. Everyone here wants to see the company succeed and they all work towards making that happen.

Although I can see how my strengths benefit EasyBib, I would rather work more independently in the future. I would be a better fit for the doctoral program I am considering. I am internally driven and can see my work through to the end when I choose my own projects. I have already sifted through a couple different projects and settled on introducing EasyBib to elementary schools. I am interested in education, have experience with elementary school students, and am excited to work on this project.

The greatest challenge I face is learning to work for others. I must mold my aspirations to fit the company’s goals, invest myself in the company, and stand by the product. This isn’t an academic setting where I can tweak my project to pinpoint what I want to work on. Rather, I have to do what is asked of me. Finding personal interest in it will make it easier.

As Peter Drucker says, it’s up to me to carve out my path, understand who I am, and decide who I will be. I can’t afford to get bored, this summer or in the second half of my life, because that will drag me down. Instead I need to keep an eye out for changes and new ideas that I would be interested in. 

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WE ARE WHO WE ARE (prompt 2).

When Peter Drucker was describing the traits of readers & listeners, talking & doing, and stress & controlled, I could easily pick which category fit me best. I am definitely a reader: I like to be well-prepared before walking into a sticky situation. Like I mentioned in my last post, I had to write a script before calling people on the phone because if not, I would have been a blundering mess! Even when the person on the other line asked me something that deviated from the script, I almost had a panic attack and exploded, just kidding; I just freaked out a little. My natural tone and language is not intelligent and polite, unfortunately. So writing these things out help me be as professional as possible.

I am also a doer, rather than a talker. Mostly, I learn through practice. I don’t need instructions read out to me. Through observational learning and practice, I will eventually master the task.

Furthermore, I know that I like working alone or in an intimate group. Perhaps that is why I am enjoying my internship so much! Since it is a small organization, I can establish personal relationships with everyone on staff. I prefer close relationships with a few people rather than an acquaintanceship with a large number of people. The small organization trusts each individual to do their job. Thus, I am definitely in my element when I am allowed to work on projects alone and get things done my way. However, with the whole “lone wolf” status comes great responsibility, my friend. Since I am trusted to work on project alone, I am also expected to make decisions on my own. However, according to the article’s definition, I am mostly an “advisor” rather than a “decision maker,” so actually putting things into action is slightly difficult (Drucker understands me). Thus, depending on how you look at it, my weaknesses can also be my strengths.

My fondness for solidarity will allow me to work better but will also challenge me to make decisions on my own. But hey, I like a challenge, which, fortunately, is another one of my strengths.

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Self-Management

As Drucker brought up all of the different ways that people function, whether they are readers/listeners, note-takers/memorizers, and what not, I began to think about not only where I fit into those categories, but also which ones I would place my coworkers into. Earlier this week my mentor asked me to do some research on how the field of chemical distribution was changing. Since I was unsure how to carry out the task, I sort did everything I could think of. However, the article made me realize that I was also trying to play the field and figure out more about my mentor Without even realizing it, I had sought out to analyze and figure out how he performs, just like the article spoke about.

I also learned more about myself in the process. Although I originally was nervous and wanted more direction, my mentor didn’t really give me the certainty I was looking for. Something I realized afterwards was how rewarding as well as helpful it was for me to figure out the best way to tackle this assignment on my own. In fact, we discussed it earlier today and he told me that he had intentionally left it open-ended such that I might have a sort of breakthrough “eureka” moment. I learned that although I may initially want direction, I can produce much better work when I figure things for myself.

I also learned how important it is for me to take notes. I can’t say that I’m on Beethoven’s level where I can write something down and never forget it, but it has been a huge help for me. I noticed early on that everyone in the office was always carrying a notepad; I remember thinking that that seemed silly and that surely it must be temporary. Yet, after some more experience, I learned how valuable it was, and just how critical a part of day-to-day operations it can be. People are constantly jotting things down, whether it’s during a client meeting, conference call, or just a casual update about a project. This tactic has been priceless for me, and has helped me formulate my ideas and have a better grasp on what is going on around me.

            Something that I wanted to work on coming into the SME was my decisiveness. Since I have been here, I have realized that the main issue is my confidence in myself to actually make a decision; once I finally do, things tend to work out and I have confidence in it. I guess I am so worried about missing something that others think is extremely obvious that I constantly question my own ability to make decisions. In all, working at Edelman has helped me realize both things I am good at as well as areas in which I can improve, and I feel that this summer will help me to truly figure out how to manage myself. 

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Managing Myself

The section in Drucker’s article that most stood out to me was when he wrote that many people do not know what they want to do until their mid-20s, but you should get to that point knowing what your strengths are, how you learn, and what you don’t want to be doing.  I currently am unsure about exactly what I want to do after I graduate and during my career, but I have learned about myself and what types of environments I work best in.  Being at Rice and my past work experiences have taught me how I learn best, I am definitely a reader.  Writing for my local newspaper last summer as well as some of my other experiences have taught me about what I don’t want to do as my career.  I know what some of my strengths are, but it is hard for me to say what I am good at without feeling arrogant or overconfident.  Over the course of the summer I hope to become more sure of what my strengths are and be comfortable telling future employers that I can add value in these specific areas. 

I also hope to use my awareness of how I work best to make sure that I can be producing my highest quality work. I often fell that I get lost in a large group, but need a small group or at least one other person to bounce ideas off of in order to do my best.  In my office, many people work from home some days and my mentor often travels or is out of the office.  Every Monday there is a staff meeting where everyone is present, so I need to take advantage of that time to get feedback and suggestions on my work.  I need to be ready Monday morning to present what I am doing in a clear manner and have it be at a stage of completion that makes feedback useful.  This will also help me to work better as I am someone who likes to work under the pressure of a deadline.  My assignments so far have not had strict deadlines, so creating my own is helpful in making sure I am productive and stay on task.

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Learning Why I Am Successful

After my second week, I attribute much of my confidence and success to how my mentor helps me focus on Peter Drucker’s questions.  I may not have answers to all of these yet, but because she sat down with me to explain the office’s culture and discuss my personality, I have noticed how my co-workers prefer to work and how I best fit into a work environment.

On the first day, the marketing manager came into my office to explain how she works.  “I am a process person,” she said and warned me that she asks a lot of questions and interrupts when others explain tasks.  When I interrupted my mentor to ask a question later that day, I realized I work in a similar fashion.  Now that I know how I operate, I feel justified in asking questions.  It is a huge relief to be open about this process with my co-workers.

I have also realized that I learn best if I write everything down.  My mentor teases me for carrying my notebook whenever I come into her office, but it helps.  Like Beethoven, I feel more confident about completing tasks after writing down their requirements.  It also forces me to look ahead to what else I might need, like “When is this due?” and “Where should I look for this information?”  I’m hoping these notes will also reveal ways I can add value, after I have collected more data.  I do have to be careful or the notes work against me.  I have a tendency to take copious notes and sink into the background.  This summer it will be a challenge to put down the notebook and voice my opinions out loud.  When I go into my first larger meetings next week, I will have to find a balance between using my strength and challenging myself in other ways.

One of the most important questions this article asked me is “What are my values?”  I never thought about this previously, but now I see my values are why I love HCL.  Part of the reason I enjoy my work is because I love writing, so they have sent me challenging writing assignments.  But also the more I learn about adult illiteracy, the more I believe in and want to work for that cause.  I had no idea that one third of Houston adults cannot read.  Knowing that my projects and my writing raise more money and awareness to change the lives of those people motivates me more than anything else.  And this is what is different from previous jobs I have held.  When I worked in retail, even in my favorite gelato shop, I got tired of constantly upselling.  Because the work was at odds with my values, my shifts became long and tortuous.  Now, though I am working longer days than ever before, I don’t find myself tiring as easily.

I’ve already learned a lot, but I can’t wait to see what the “best self” assignment tells me.

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Managing Myself (not even going to attempt a creative title)

I am most definitely a reader, and to a lesser extent a writer. I like to have a mental script in my head before walking into a meeting, and even in classes at Rice I always try to hash out what I am going to say before I raise my hand. I like being prepared in every other aspect of my life, so it’s no surprise that I plan out what I say as well. I’m also a big fan of writing things down; my mentor puts all of the meetings I’m supposed to go to on Microsoft Outlook, but I’ve found myself writing all of them down in my planner as well, because that helps me remember them.

I mentioned in my last post that I also know that I work much better with small groups. Large groups can be overwhelming for me; since I’m not naturally super outgoing or assertive, it can be hard for me to find my place in a large group and I usually just end up getting frustrated. In small groups, however, it’s easier for me to step up and lead in the areas that my skills are needed. I’m glad that the office this summer is small; even though the Department of Education as a whole is huge, my office only has about 25 people. The small size has made it easier for me to meet almost everyone in the office. I’m also very relieved that there aren’t a whole slew of interns in my office, so that I don’t have to worry about “proving myself” to my mentor while simultaneously getting used to a new city and workplace.

My internship has slowly been giving me a better idea of where my strengths are in terms of contributions. This week, I’ve been able to work on a bigger variety of smaller projects; for example, generating ideas about how to make my office’s website more user-friendly, and drafting tweets and Facebook posts about important happenings within the Department of Education. I’ve always thought that I’m much better at thinking of ways to make things better than I am at creating things from scratch, and my work this week confirmed that. I found that tasks where I had to think of ways to improve existing processes came much easier to me than having to come up with things completely on my own.

My mentor also seems to be a reader and writer, so I don’t foresee any challenges because of different working styles. I think my challenges this summer will come from finding useful ways to contribute to my organization; I’m not as busy as I want to be, despite constantly being on the lookout for tasks. I think my attention to detail and my desire to improve what’s already in place at the Department of Education will help me thrive this summer; as my mentor and coworkers see that I can do smaller tasks really well, hopefully they will assign me bigger projects.  

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Managing Myself

        I see my analytical skills as being one of my major strengths.  I am very detail-oriented and think of myself as being very good at conducting research.  However, I am afraid that I am sometimes poor at communicating my own work and research to others, which ultimately does a disservice to my own efforts.  In my experience, I have the least success when I am very wordy and overly technical in my reports.  This is a habit that I feel I must overcome to obtain the success I desire. 

            After reading through the Drucker article, I would categorize myself as a reader.  I tend to prefer to work independently.  So far my mentor has asked me to complete several different research tasks.  I have successfully completed these assignments, but my mentor did not really read through them for the most part.  Instead, he asked me to explain them to him – to give him the “411.”  I have come to realize that my lengthy, detail-oriented style of presenting documents to my mentor does not complement his style.  I would say that my mentor is definitely a listener.  I will have to find ways to communicate my research to him better, likely through diagrams and pictorial representations. 

            I have very strongly held values and ethical beliefs.  I believe that everyone should be treated with respect and compassion, regardless of the person’s background, accomplishments, status, etc.  I view my own values as being in nearly perfect alignment with those of my organization.  I was drawn to my organization’s mission and vision immediately from before I even began my internship.  This has been one of the highlights of my internship.

            Whereas I feel that my values fit well with those of my organization, I am still having some trouble learning how I fit into my organization.  It has been difficult for me to establish many relationships in more organizations since it is so small.  There are many days when there is only one other person in the office (and still other days that I am the only one).  I have had to find independent ways to exert myself.  One of the challenges I face is learning to exceed the organizations without a clear definition of what those expectations are. 

            Since I am not given precise expectations, I know that I must leverage my own personal strengths in a way that will allow me to personally improve my organization.  As expressed in the article, few employees today are told what they should contribute.  As a result, each individual must learn what he/she can and should contribute.  Looking toward the next seven weeks, I see myself connecting my organization with other like-minded organizations in the Houston area and beyond in order to improve its performance and influence.  This means first utilizing my research skills to identify such organizations and next networking and building coalitions with these groups.  This is what lies ahead for me at the moment.  

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Illuminating Discoveries

This week’s article has made me think a lot about who I am and how I work. Some of the questions I can answer very easily. For example, reading about decision-makers vs. advisors, I immediately knew that I was more of an advisor. However, the selected quote on the side of the page makes me feel uncomfortable. “Do not try to change yourself-you are unlikely to succeed.” I agree that it’s important to know one’s self and the way that one is most effective, but remaining only in comfortable situations and avoiding the rest seems boring and almost cowardly. Reading the article has also made me suspect that I am the type of person who learns by hearing himself talk. I’ve noticed that I am not a fast talker, and that I need to slowly think things through before saying anything. I now realize that instead of thinking in order to talk, as I thought I was doing, I am actually doing both simultaneously (hence my inability to verbally respond in quick situations or debates).

I also think that I’m a listener, more than a reader. I like to read, and I do it a lot, but it’s easier for me to understand and internalize information if somebody says it to me. By reading something I can understand it, but I think I’m more likely to forget it. For example this week at Virgo, Ajay sent me a presentation about the system that the OPerational EXcellence (OP-EX) department has recently implemented throughout the company. I was supposed to go through the presentation on my own, and prepare for a meeting with a senior engineer from the OP-EX department (Vinayak) in which he presented the information to the three of us (Anand, Allison and I). I don’t know if Ajay purposely set up our meeting in this way to cater to different learning styles, but it definitely worked. Even though I had already seen all of the information that was in the presentation, I found that I was asking questions and speaking with Vinayak about various aspects of the projects. This goes against my self-image, for I’m only just beginning to realize that I thrive when I’m talking/listening to people, whereas I had always thought of myself as an introvert. Looking back at previous experiences though, I do realize that I am happiest and most effective when surrounded by people (especially people who are louder and more opinionated than me). This is challenging for me, because being around people gives me the opportunity to voice my opinions and make sense of my thoughts, but it also makes it a lot more difficult to have my own opinions if I’m surrounded by people who have different views.

There will be many opportunities in this coming week (and throughout the next month) to test my new hypothesis. I’m going to make an effort to talk to people, and reflect after my meetings to see if I can retain the information that I hear more than the information that I read.